Full Compensation,
December 29
Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Hebrews 10:35-37.
Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Hebrews 10:35-37.
The long-suffering of God is wonderful. Long does justice wait while mercy pleads with the sinner. But “righteousness and judgment are the establishment of his throne” (Psalm 97:2, margin).... The world has become bold in transgression of God’s law. Because of His long forbearance, men have trampled upon His authority.... But there is a line beyond which they cannot pass. The time is near when they will have reached the prescribed limit. Even now they have almost exceeded the bounds of the long-suffering of God, the limits of His grace, the limits of His mercy. The Lord will interpose to vindicate His own honor, to deliver His people, and to repress the swellings of unrighteousness....
In this time of prevailing iniquity we may know that the last great crisis is at hand. When the defiance of God’s law is almost universal, when His people are oppressed and afflicted by their fellow men, the Lord will interpose....
“There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time; and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book” (Daniel 12:1). From garrets, from hovels, from dungeons, from scaffolds, from mountains and deserts, from the caves of the earth and the caverns of the sea, Christ will gather His children to himself.... By human tribunals the children of God have been adjudged the vilest criminals. But the day is near when “God is judge himself” (Psalm 50:6). Then the decisions of earth shall be reversed. “The rebuke of his people shall he take away” (Isaiah 25:8). White robes will be given to every one of them....
Whatever crosses they have been called to bear, whatever losses they have sustained, whatever persecution they have suffered, even to the loss of their temporal life, the children of God are amply recompensed. “They shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads” (Revelation 22:4).59Christ’s Object Lessons, 177-180.
The long-suffering of God is wonderful. Long does justice wait while mercy pleads with the sinner. But “righteousness and judgment are the establishment of his throne” (Psalm 97:2, margin).... The world has become bold in transgression of God’s law. Because of His long forbearance, men have trampled upon His authority.... But there is a line beyond which they cannot pass. The time is near when they will have reached the prescribed limit. Even now they have almost exceeded the bounds of the long-suffering of God, the limits of His grace, the limits of His mercy. The Lord will interpose to vindicate His own honor, to deliver His people, and to repress the swellings of unrighteousness....
In this time of prevailing iniquity we may know that the last great crisis is at hand. When the defiance of God’s law is almost universal, when His people are oppressed and afflicted by their fellow men, the Lord will interpose....
“There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time; and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book” (Daniel 12:1). From garrets, from hovels, from dungeons, from scaffolds, from mountains and deserts, from the caves of the earth and the caverns of the sea, Christ will gather His children to himself.... By human tribunals the children of God have been adjudged the vilest criminals. But the day is near when “God is judge himself” (Psalm 50:6). Then the decisions of earth shall be reversed. “The rebuke of his people shall he take away” (Isaiah 25:8). White robes will be given to every one of them....
Whatever crosses they have been called to bear, whatever losses they have sustained, whatever persecution they have suffered, even to the loss of their temporal life, the children of God are amply recompensed. “They shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads” (Revelation 22:4).59
Christ’s Object Lessons, 177-180.
God’s Law Leads to True Repentance, December 29
Perhaps everyone will listen and turn from his evil way, that I may relent concerning the calamity which I purpose to bring on them because of the evil of their doings. Jeremiah 26:3, NKJV.
[The apostle Paul writes that] “I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” ... The law which promised life to the obedient pronounced death upon the transgressor. “Wherefore,” he says, “the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.”
How wide the contrast between these words of Paul and those that come from many of the pulpits of today. The people are taught that obedience to God’s law is not necessary to salvation; that they have only to believe in Jesus, and they are safe. Without the law, human beings have no conviction of sin, and feel no need of repentance. Not seeing their lost condition as violators of God’s law, they do not feel their need of the atoning blood of Christ as their only hope of salvation.
The law of God is an agent in every genuine conversion. There can be no true repentance without conviction of sin. The Scriptures declare that “sin is the transgression of the law,” and that “by the law is the knowledge of sin.”
In order to see their guilt, sinners must test their character by God’s great standard of righteousness. To discover their defects, they must look into the mirror of the divine statutes. But while the law reveals their sins, it provides no remedy. The gospel of Christ alone can offer pardon. In order to stand forgiven, sinners must exercise repentance toward God, whose law has been transgressed, and faith in Christ, their atoning sacrifice.
Without true repentance, there can be no true conversion. Many are deceived here, and too often their entire experience proves to be a deception. This is why so many who are joined to the church have never been joined to Christ.
“The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” In the new birth, the heart is renewed by divine grace, and brought into harmony with God as it is brought into subjection to His law. When this mighty change has taken place, the sinner has passed from death unto life, from sin unto holiness, from transgression and rebellion to obedience and loyalty. The old life of alienation from God has ended; the new life of reconciliation, of faith and love, has begun. Then will “the righteousness of the law” “be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”—The Spirit of Prophecy 4:297, 298.