Timely Instruction

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Taken from a Private Letter to James Edson White

I am instructed, as the Lord’s messenger, to tell you to make God your trust, and to leave your perplexities in His hands. He will bring to pass His will. Now is your time to find rest of soul. Let not your dependence be in man, but in God. You must every moment make Him your trust. You, and all the Lord’s people, have a work to do. We are to build the old waste places, and raise up the foundations of many generations. The great issue regarding the law of God will soon be upon us. We are to work as those who are called and chosen of God. Our influence is to be united with that of the great Physician in repairing the breach and restoring paths to dwell in. We are to make a determined stand for the truth. Read the whole of the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah.

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No one is to be idle now. Oh that those who have allowed continual differences to arise could see the loss they have thus sustained. Let us work on the plan given in the fifty-eighth of Isaiah. The instruction of this chapter shows what we are to do in co-operation with the great Master-worker. My son, do what you can to relieve the situation of the colored people of the South, and especially the situation of the colored people in Nashville. «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?»

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This message is given to me to give to others everywhere. God abhors selfishness. Let every one of us abhor it. Let us deal justly and mercifully with every line of the work of God. Those who change the issue, as has so often been done, to shun the doing of the work laid out in this Scripture, will lose a most precious blessing. The Word of the Lord is sufficient. God calls us to action. Let us all take hold unitedly, with the will to do what God has said must be done. Success will attend those who co-operate with God all the time , not just once in a while, when it is for their advantage to do so. We are to regard it as a sacred privilege to work out the purposes of God.

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«Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily, and thy righteousness shall go before thee, and the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and He shall say, Here I am.» What does this mean but that obstructions will be placed in the way, to hinder the advancement of the work which has been kept before the Lord’s people for many years.

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Are the souls for whom Christ has given His life cared for as they should be? Are those to whom He has entrusted His means moving consistently in relieving the oppressed? Are not the cries and complaints of the poor and needy entering the ears of the Lord God of hosts because His stewards are remiss in the work that they should do as His helping hand? Is not this evil in every church? «Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice as a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.» Let the present order of things be changed.

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«If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday.»

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God will not permit selfish adoration of some, while others, striving with all their capabilities, are left unhelped, and are deprived of the blessings that more favored ones have. I call upon all to arouse to their responsibilities. The Lord Jesus has said, «Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.» He takes observation, and writes in His book the deeds of His children here below. He sees when His faithful ones are put in the hardest places, and are permitted to do their God-given work under great disadvantages. He says, «Will I not judge for these things?»

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«If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; and if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday. And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. And they that be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou shalt rise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.

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«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.»

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«Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.» The messenger must deal faithfully with the great deception. He must convince the people of their sins. They are called the people of God, the house of Jacob. They bear an honorable title, and because of the high privileges bestowed on them, they have become self-exalted. This is their danger. Flatter them not, but open before them their defects of character, their neglect to honor God by self-denial and self-sacrifice, their failure to follow the example set them by the Saviour.

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Said Christ, «My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.» «I seek not Mine own glory, but the glory of Him that sent Me.» Let the people of God arouse to a sense of their deficiencies, and of the work that they must do. Let them break every yoke. Let them make their prayers practical. It is for the best good of the Lord’s people that the sins and the defects caused by the enemy be plainly pointed out.

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So long have some exalted themselves as supreme in wisdom that their sins are deceptive and delusive. They have not on the robe of Christ’s righteousness, but it is not yet too late for wrongs to be righted. Let them repent and be converted, and bring mercy and justice and judgment into their lives. If they would receive the message of God, and do the merciful acts of Christ, they would live a new life. They would cease all boasting, all falsifying, all evil speaking, and humble their hearts before God. They would obey the instruction given by Christ in the Old and New Testaments, remembering that in life and character they must be representatives of Christ. They would honor their Redeemer by daily living the new life,-a life hid with Christ in God.

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Practical Christianity means, not working for God now and then, but continuously. It means being laborers together with God. A neglect to reveal this practical righteousness in our lives is a denial of the faith and of the power of God, and makes of but little effect His principles of Godliness. Such negligent Christians become fault-finders, at discord with their brethren, and pronouncing judgment against many good works. They are spiritual paralytics.

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Those who thus refuse to exercise for Christ the capabilities and powers of the soul, are lukewarm Christians, neither cold or hot, and they are nauseating to Christ. He cannot endure their unsanctified traits of character. Their lives bear the evidence I do not care to confess. The confession may never be made until it is made in awful agony, when it is too late for wrongs to be righted.

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Those who allow themselves to be deceived by the enemy, are held accountable by God for failing in a faithful discharge of duty.

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These unfaithful stewards have aided in strengthening the deception that God designed should be broken. The testimony to be borne is, «Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.» There are those who are self-deceived, yet, for fear of hurting their feelings, their brethren permit them to go on, though feeling that their course is not in harmony with the will of the Lord. These deceived ones commit sins that they will not acknowledge to be sins. They may appear to be reformed in some things, but they are not doing thorough work in confession and repentance. Those who might have saved them, but did not, become in turn like them. Sentiments of a misleading character are presented. Sins are committed that are not acknowledged as sins.

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God said to Isaiah, «Show My people their transgression.» Let their sins appear as they are, whether or not they confess them, that the message of reproof sent them may be vindicated, and that God’s faithfulness in warning them and condemning their wrong course of action may be shown. Evidence is to be given to the evil worker that the Lord knows the course followed by those who refuse to repent and be converted, that others may shun a similar course of affronting God and setting a wrong example. Those who make no difference between those who serve God with the whole heart, and those whom He has reproved, become a snare, and they lose their power of discernment.

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There are plain, decided testimonies to be born under the power of the Holy Spirit, to men who will not see their own sins. Such ones are a snare to others, setting them an example that leads them to do likewise. And when the word of the Lord comes to His messengers, as it came to Isaiah, then wrong must be called wrong, and the right must be presented as it is presented in the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah.

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The reproof is to be given with the earnestness and faithfulness represented in the words, «Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.»

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«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: they ask of Me the ordinance of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.» God sends His message to lay bare the deception of these ones, lest others, and among them those entrusted with large responsibilities, shall become unworthy of their trust. The reproval, the messenger of God, must speak with earnestness, as to ears that are deaf, because those addressed do not want to be convinced. They want to stand as wise men, who make no mistakes. But they are under the power of the enemy, and bring in sentiments that are dishonoring to God. «Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and Thou seest not? Wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and Thou takest no knowledge? 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? A day for a man to afflict his soul? 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?

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«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 brake 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?

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«If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: and the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters fail not.»

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These rich promises are to be fulfilled. The Lord will co-operate with men in all their works of reform, but their salvation depends on their cutting loose from the scientific falsehood of Satan.

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«And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.» The Christian world has been drawn into a fallacy, and has been led to trample upon the law of Jehovah. The message of the immutability of this law is to be proclaimed by all medical missionaries, and all ministers of the gospel. The foundation of many generations is the law of God, and in clear decided tones the message is to be given that the breach which has been made in the law of God is to be repaired.

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«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 shall 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.»

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The command concerning the observance of the Seventh-Day Sabbath is still binding upon all the inhabitants of this earth. God has set apart this day as a sign between Him and His people of their loyalty. God’s commandments never change; they are as enduring as eternity. The Lord has His messengers whom He bids to proclaim His law as changeless in its character. Those who obey this law will bear the seal of the living God. There is no sanctity in the first day of the week. The Seventh Day was set a part as a memorial of the work of creation. Every one is to look to God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, for light and guidance, and Him alone are they to honor. —