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Often Rejected, November 12
And they called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor
teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said unto
them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more
than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we
have seen and heard.
Acts 4:18-20
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The promise of the Holy Spirit was the brightest hope and the strongest
consolation that Christ could leave His disciples when He ascended to heaven.
The truths of God’s Word had been buried beneath the rubbish of misinter-
pretation; the maxims of men, the sayings of finite beings, had been exalted
above the Word of the living God. Under the enlightening power of the Holy
Spirit, the apostles separated truth from false theories, and gave to the people
the word of life.
The Holy Spirit is often rejected because it comes in unexpected ways.
Evidence upon evidence that the apostles were speaking and acting under
divine inspiration had been given to the Jewish priests and rulers, but still
they firmly resisted the message of truth. Christ had not come in the way
they expected, and though at times they were convinced that He was the
Son of God, yet they stifled conviction, and thus became blinder and more
hardened than before. They crucified Christ, yet Christ in His mercy gave
them additional evidence in the works wrought by the disciples. He sent His
servants to tell them what they had done, and even in the terrible charge that
they had killed the Prince of life, He gave them another call to repentance.
But, feeling secure in their own righteousness, the Jewish teachers were not
prepared to admit that the men who had reproved them for crucifying Christ
were speaking by the direction of the Holy Spirit....
The wrath of God is not declared against men merely because of the
sin they have committed, but because they choose to continue in a state of
resistance, because they repeat the sins of the past in spite of the light and
evidence given them. If the Jewish leaders had submitted, they would have
been pardoned; but they were determined not to yield. In the same way, the
sinner, by continued resistance, places himself where he knows nothing but
resistance.—
The Signs of the Times, September 27, 1899
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