164
Selected Messages Book 1
while you should be cautious as to your words and ideas, it is not
necessary that your labors should entirely cease. Seek to be in har-
mony with your brethren, and there will be plenty for you to do in the
vineyard of the Lord. But exalt Christ, not your ideas and views. Put
on the armor, and keep step with God’s workers, shoulder to shoulder;
press the battle against the enemy. Hide in Jesus. Dwell on the simple
lessons of Christ, feed the flock of God, and you will become settled,
strengthened, established; you will work to build up others in the most
holy faith.
If you differ with your brethren as to your understanding of the
grace of Christ and the operations of His Spirit, you should not make
these differences prominent. You view the matter from one point;
another, just as devoted to God, views the same question from another
point, and speaks of the things that make the deepest impression on his
mind; anothr viewing it from a still different point, presents another
phase; and how foolish it is to get into contention over these things,
when there is really nothing to contend about. Let God work on the
mind and impress the heart.
The Lord is constantly at work to open the understanding, to
quicken the perceptions, that man may have a right sense of sin and
of the far-reaching claims of God’s law. The unconverted man thinks
of God as unloving, as severe, and even revengeful; His presence
is thought to be a constant restraint, His character an expression of
“Thou shalt not.” His service is regarded as full of gloom and hard
requirements. But when Jesus is seen upon the cross, as the gift of
God because He loved man, the eyes are opened to see things in a new
light. God as revealed in Christ is not a severe judge, an avenging
tyrant, but a merciful and loving Father.
As we see Jesus dying upon the cross to save lost man, the heart
echoes the words of John, “Behold, what manner of love the Father
hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God:
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therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not” (
1 John
3:1
). There is nothing that more decidedly distinguishes the Christian
from the worldly man than the estimate he has of God.
Some workers in the cause of God have been too ready to hurl
denunciations against the sinner; the grace and love of the Father in
giving His Son to die for the sinful race have been put in the back-
ground. The teacher needs the grace of Christ upon his own soul, in