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Amazed At God’s Love, March 22
I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.
Revelation 1:10
.
The Lord’s day mentioned by John was the Sabbath, the day on which Jehovah
rested after the great work of creation, and which He blessed and sanctified because
He had rested upon it. The Sabbath was as sacredly observed by John upon the
Isle of Patmos as when he was among the people, preaching upon that day. By
the barren rocks surrounding him, John was reminded of rocky Horeb, and how,
when God spoke His law to the people there, He said, “Remember the sabbath
day, to keep it holy” (
Exodus 20:8
).
The Son of God spoke to Moses from the mountaintop. God made the rocks His
sanctuary. His temple was the everlasting hills. The Divine Legislator descended
upon the rocky mountain to speak His law in the hearing of all the people, that
they might be impressed by the grand and awful exhibition of His power and glory,
and fear to transgress His commandments. God spoke His law amid thunders and
lightnings and the thick cloud upon the top of the mountain, and His voice was
as the voice of a trumpet exceeding loud. The law of Jehovah was unchangeable,
and the tablets upon which He wrote that law were solid rock, signifying the
immutability of His precepts. Rocky Horeb became a sacred place to all who
loved and revered the law of God.
While John was contemplating the scenes of Horeb, the Spirit of Him who
sanctified the seventh day came upon him. He contemplated the sin of Adam
in transgressing the divine law, and the fearful result of that transgression. The
infinite love of God, in giving His Son to redeem a lost race, seemed too great for
language to express. As he presents it in his Epistle he calls upon the church and
the world to behold it. “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed
upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth
us not, because it knew him not” (
1 John 3:1
).
It was a mystery to John that God could give His Son to die for rebellious man.
And he was lost in amazement that the plan of salvation, devised at such a cost
to Heaven, should be refused by those for whom the infinite sacrifice had been
made....
It is no light matter to sin against God, to set the perverse will of man in
opposition to the will of his Maker. It is for the best interest of men, even in this
world, to obey God’s commandments. And it is surely for their eternal interest to
submit to God, and be at peace with Him.... God made him a free moral agent, to
obey or disobey. The reward of everlasting life—an eternal weight of glory—is
promised to those who do God’s will.—
The Sanctified Life, 74-76
.
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