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Written for Our Admonition, September 2
The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his
way.
Psalm 25:9
.
God will work with those who will listen to His voice.
The Word of God is to be the man of our counsel, and is to guide our
experience. The lessons of Old Testament history, if faithfully studied, will
teach us how this can be. Christ, enshrouded in a pillar of cloud by day and a
pillar of fire by night, was the guide and the light of the children of Israel in
their wilderness wandering. Here was an unerring Guide.
In all their experiences, God was trying to teach them obedience to their
heavenly Guide, and faith in His power to deliver them. Their deliverance
from affliction in Egypt, and their passage through the Red Sea, revealed to
them His power to save. When they rebelled against Him, and went contrary
to His will, God punished them. When they persisted in their rebellion, and
were determined to have their own way, God gave them that for which they
asked, and in this way showed them that, that which He withheld from them,
He withheld for their own good. Every judgment that came as a result of their
murmurings was a lesson to that vast multitude, that sorrow and suffering are
always the result of transgression of the laws of God.
The history of the Old Testament was recorded for the benefit of those who
should live in the generations following. The lessons of the New Testament
are as greatly needed. Here again Christ is the instructor, leading His people
to seek that wisdom that cometh from above, and to gain that instruction in
righteousness that will mold the character after the divine similitude. Both
Old and New Testament Scriptures teach the principles of obedience to the
commandments of God as the terms of securing that life which measures
with the life of God, for it is through obedience that we become partakers of
the divine nature, and learn to escape the corruptions that are in the world
through lust. Therefore its maxims are to be studied, its commands obeyed,
its principles, which are more precious than gold, brought into the daily
life.—
Letter 342, September 2, 1907
, to the workers in southern California.
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