60
Selected Messages Book 1
not been disappointed. Had I depended on human applause, I would
long ago have become discouraged. But I looked to Jesus, and saw
that He who was without a fault was assailed by slanderous tongues.
Those who made high pretensions to godliness followed as spies
upon the Saviour’s course, and made every exertion in their power
to hedge up His way. But although He was all-powerful, He did not
visit His adversaries as their sins deserved. He might have launched
forth against them the bolts of His vengeance, but He did not. He
administered scathing rebukes for their hypocrisy and corruption, and
when His message was rejected and His life threatened, He quietly
passed to another place to speak the words of life. I have tried, in my
weakness, to follow the example of my Saviour.
Enmity Against Advocates of Truth
How eagerly the Pharisees sought to prove Christ a deceiver! How
they watched His every word, seeking to misrepresent and misinterpret
all His sayings! Pride and prejudice and passion closed every avenue
of the soul against the testimony of the Son of God. When He plainly
rebuked their iniquity and declared that their works proved them to be
the children of Satan, they angrily flung back the accusation, saying,
“Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?”
All the arguments urged against Christ were founded in falsehood.
So was it in the case of Stephen, and of Paul. But the weakest and
most unreliable statements made on the wrong side had an influence,
because there were so many whose hearts were unsanctified, who
desired those statements to be true. Such are ever eager to fasten
[71]
upon any supposed error or mistake in those who speak to them the
unpalatable truth.
It should not surprise us when evil conjectures are greedily seized
upon as undoubted facts by those who have an appetite for falsehood.
The opposers of Christ were again and again confounded and put to
silence by the wisdom of His words; yet they still eagerly listened to
every rumor, and found some pretext to ply Him again with opposing
questions. They were determined not to abandon their purpose. They
well knew that if Jesus should continue His work, many would believe
on Him, and the scribes and Pharisees would lose their power with the
people. Hence they were ready to stoop to any base or contemptible