God’s Purpose for His Church
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through connection with the God whom Joseph and Daniel worshiped.
Everyone in whose heart Christ abides, everyone who will show forth
His love to the world, is a worker together with God for the blessing of
humanity. As he receives from the Saviour grace to impart to others,
from his whole being flows forth the tide of spiritual life.
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God chose Israel to reveal His character to men. He desired them
to be as wells of salvation in the world. To them were committed the
oracles of heaven, the revelation of God’s will. In the early days of
Israel the nations of the world, through corrupt practices, had lost the
knowledge of God. They had once known Him; but because “they
glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in
their imaginations, ... their foolish heart was darkened.”
Romans 1:21
.
Yet in His mercy God did not blot them out of existence. He purposed
to give them an opportunity of again becoming acquainted with Him
through His chosen people. Through the teachings of the sacrificial
service, Christ was to be uplifted before all nations, and all who would
look to Him should live. Christ was the foundation of the Jewish
economy. The whole system of types and symbols was a compacted
prophecy of the gospel, a presentation in which were bound up the
promises of redemption.
But the people of Israel lost sight of their high privileges as God’s
representatives. They forgot God and failed to fulfill their holy mission.
The blessings they received brought no blessing to the world. All their
advantages they appropriated for their own glorification. They shut
themselves away from the world in order to escape temptation. The
restrictions that God had placed upon their association with idolaters
as a means of preventing them from conforming to the practices of the
heathen, they used to build up a wall of separation between themselves
and all other nations. They robbed God of the service He required of
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them, and they robbed their fellow men of religious guidance and a
holy example.
Priests and rulers became fixed in a rut of ceremonialism. They
were satisfied with a legal religion, and it was impossible for them
to give to others the living truths of heaven. They thought their own
righteousness all-sufficient, and did not desire that a new element
should be brought into their religion. The good will of God to men
they did not accept as something apart from themselves, but connected
it with their own merit because of their good works. The faith that