Sermon/Thoughts on Isaiah 58
Loma Linda, California
May 18, 1907
Previously unpublished.
Isaiah 58:1-3. Are any of us in the position that we claim great things, and yet selfishness, thread after thread, is drawn into the web, which God will not acknowledge at all? 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 1
Verses 3-6. Now that is a work that belongs to every soul that claims to be a partaker of the divine nature. It is to rid themselves of everything like selfishness. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 2
Verse 6. They have got to see it. They must be wide awake to observe it. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 3
Verse 6. Now that is just the reproof they needed because they were not doing it. God required them to do a work that they were shunning to do, and if any of us consider that we are serving the Lord with full purpose according to His requirements, please read the work that Christ accomplished when He came into our world. The whole burden of the oppression of the people was what called Him from the heavenly courts, that He might adjust wrongs that were prevailing everywhere. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 4
Verse 6. Now, if we will be watching, if we will have the burden of the work that Christ had laid upon us, if we will take that burden as He has appointed us to do, we shall find that we will have a great deal more to accomplish in showing our religious faithfulness than we accomplish today. We cannot afford to have our Saviour present before us such an example of His life character and we stand back, when he has given the work into our hands, the hands of His disciples, to be co-laborers with Jesus Christ, to carry the work intelligently that he had begun. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 5
Verses 4, 5. They are mistaken. Verse 6. God has appointed and chosen His people, and given them an example in His life of what they could be. The should carry out the very principles of the life that He had given them. They should be interested in the unfortunate. There is a work that rests upon every church that claims to be following Jesus Christ, that they shall do these very things, to break every yoke. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 6
Verse 7. Now, every soul that claims to believe in Christ is to be a partaker of the divine nature, His nature which they accepted when they were led down into the water, when they were baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. What does that mean? They have extended their service. They here were led down into the water, and three great heavenly powers were vouched to care for them, to work for them, if they carry out the principles, come out from the world and be separate, and do not be just as they were before they professed to be followers of Christ. What evidence has He given you of the work that He requires every one of us to do? 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 7
He requires that we are softened and subdued and sanctified by His Holy Spirit, and that we study how we may work the very works that Christ has worked. He went with His disciples from place to place. Wherever He went He was attentive to those that came, that needed attention. They had not any sanitariums as we have here, but they needed the sanitarium that it shall grant them what they need in Jesus Christ. He was their sanctuary, He was their helper, He was the great leading Physician in our world. Wherever He went the followed Him. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 8
And there would be five thousand on one occasion, and more on other occasions; some were fainting, and He looked around upon them. There He had been leading to a grassy plot, that He could have them seated. Now, what have you got for them to eat? He says. Here are five loaves and a few small fishes. Bid them all sit down. And there He took the five loaves and divided them with His disciples, and told them to distribute to the multitude. And there was enough to pass to all those five thousand besides women and children. Now you just think of what the word was. Do you not think that if we dedicate ourselves to the Lord God of heaven that He will give us of His Holy Spirit, so that we can communicate to those that are in necessity? 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 9
We have studied various missions. We spent ten years lacking two months in Australia to make the first track, to break the first ground in the woods. 1500 acres for what? Why don’t you go into the cities? Because they are corrupted, because we wanted to get the youth out into the country—just as we have been trying to get a place here for our school—and that we might give opportunity for the sick and suffering ones to go cured without drug medication, which kills more than it cures. We wanted them to receive health from the natural sources. We wanted to teach them what self-denial was, that they did not need the tea nor the coffee, nor the flesh meats, nor these multitude of things that without any kind of consideration they introduce into their stomach. They cannot open a door here and see what is going on in that stomach. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 10
Here is the truth. It is to contemplate that many of the things they have put into their stomach quarrel. They do not agree, and after a time they wear out the life forces and bring sickness. You will hear over and over again, of the great men, they came from a large dinner and they were having a great time there eating and drinking and drugging themselves with liquor, and they dropped down, dead, just as soon as they got to the cars. Who is accountable for that? It is the ignorance of the people. And what we have been trying to labor for with all our mind and soul is to get the right principles before the people, that they may educate their children and teach them that this stomach can wear out. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 11
We want not to take into our stomach a great heterogenous mass that poisons the blood. And you read that this one died right after a dinner, and the other one died right after their supper, and thus you will see in the paper of death after death. God does not want you to kill yourself in this way. God wants you to become intelligent, and therefore we have in the name of the Lord tried to establish our health institutions that they may give an education. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 12
We want a school wherever there is a sanitarium. We want the students to be educated, to be trained in the right methods of eating, in the right methods of drinking. And we want that everything should be done for the health to train them that they may see the necessity of carrying out the principles of righteousness. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 13
Verses 7, 8. There is a work of righteousness that they are doing constantly. And that is that. Now just think what it will be. “The glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward.” Now if we want to be happy men and women, and to be wealthy, we had better study the Word, and see what it means to be a Christian. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 14
Verses 9, 10. That promise is given us by one that never makes a mistake. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 15
Verses 11, 12. Now we can see that there is a power for us; for there are angels, abundance of angels, if you will only recognize that there are angels of God, and when you are in a strait place, if you would look right to the Lord for help, you will have it. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 16
We do not pray half enough. We just offer a prayer now and then, but we want more praying. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 17
Verse 11. Now take all these things in. But we must relate ourselves to God to follow out the Word instead of having our tables piled up with a great lot of magazines and novel stories. I forbid their putting them upon my table in my office and in my parlor. I tell our family we cannot afford it. We want no love story ditties on our table for our youth to ponder over, and their life take on a phase that we do not want them to. We have got the Word, and we can present the Word in so attractive a manner that they will be pleased to hear it. We want everything done for our children that fathers and mothers and relatives can do. And we want to cling close to the mighty One. We do not want to let go, and go to this party of pleasure and take our children, to that party of pleasure, and have them to lose all sense of what their duty is. O, we have got lots to do. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 18
Verses 12-14. Now we want to understand many things. Jesus, our precious Saviour presented Himself in the heavenly courts as one that would be the redemption price for every soul that lives upon the earth. Will we understand that? They would not all accept it. No. They preferred to have their own way, and their own will, and to do as they pleased, but here we are on test and trial whether we will be accounted worthy to unite with the holy heavenly family in the courts of the Lord. We are fitting up, for there is a change that is to take place in our world very soon, and we are to form a character now that will give us a fitness for the society of the family in the heavenly courts. For there is to be a family there. The gates of the city of God are to be thrown back upon their glittering hinges, and the nations that have kept the truth are to enter in. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 19
Here is the Word of truth. And it rests wholly with us whether we will take that truth and make the Word of the Lord our counselor and teach it to our children and educate and train our children for the future immortal life. The glory of the Lord, He says, shall go before us. Yes, it shall go before us, and there will be a light that shall emanate from every one of us that will make God our Counselor, and will make the Word our counselor, that we will follow it. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 20
Now God calls for you to give some attention to your children. They are God’s property. He redeemed them. Every soul of them He redeemed, and the fathers and mothers are to take their children and never to scold, never to fret, never to keep up a bickering all the time, but lead the children in obedience. They must be obedient. Eli chose to let his children have their own way, and do just as they pleased, and what was the result? God said He would not forger that sin, now or forever, of leaving them to attend to the courts of the Lord. The wickedness that they carried on in connection with the work of God spoiled the distinction between the truth and holiness. I was a terrible work. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 21
“I know Abraham, said the Lord, that he will command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment.” [Genesis 18:19.] 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 22
Some fathers seem to think that the mechanical business is about all that they are to live for. Here the house demands them. Fathers, you are to consider that you are priests in your own family, to be reverenced and respected, and to educate and train your children in the way of the Lord. The mother, what is she? She is the queen in the household. She is one that is to be honored. In the place of this the mother is made the slave. The little children are left to do as they please. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 23
I began to educate my children, as soon as they could know anything to keep busy. They would say, Mother, can I help you? Now won’t you take out all this? Children, I tell you, you help me in more ways than one. If you make a mistake, I can correct that mistake, I can take it out, and still keep you learning all the time. I cannot tell you that your work is perfect yet, but you keep learning. I would keep their hands busy as I could. But yet they had their opportunities to work on the land, and to amuse themselves, but never, would I allow a cross word spoken from one to the other. I would not allow it in myself, nor would I allow the children. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 24
But now the children are brought up to play, play, play everywhere. Their life is given to play and amusement. Then what? They seek any society that will amuse them. We cannot afford it. It is at the sacrifice of eternal life in the kingdom of glory. And life is given to business, buying and selling and gambling and racing, and then buying and selling and losing, that is the way the world is. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 25
Who is it that purchased man? Here it is: Jesus Christ, the only begotten of the Father that says, I will give My life for the redemption of the race. He laid off His royal crown. He laid aside His royal robe and His magisterial dignity there over the angels. He gave it to the Father, and He came into our world as a little child with poor parentage. Why? He might have had legions of angels that would have come with Him, but that was not the way. He would come to humanity; He would work out humanity as humanity to the perfection that God requires. His divinity clothed with humanity was constantly working in behalf of men even from His childhood. He was carrying out the pattern of perfection. That was our Saviour. He was rejected and despised of men, and He went right through with His work until He was betrayed and hung upon the cross. His own disciples, members of His own family, said, “If thou be the Christ, show Thyself to the world,” and then is added, “Neither did his brethren believe in Him.” [John 7:4, 5.] That was the cruelest thing. Neither did they believe. Go up, He tells them, to Jerusalem; I will come up afterward. If they should see Christ in that company with His own brethren, they would know that He was the one that they wanted to take and to kill. Said he, It is not safe for me to go up now, but He could go on afterward, so that with the multitude nobody distinguished Him, for He had lessons to give to the people. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 26
Now see Christ as He made this sacrifice for us, and you have it in the Bible, and have no reason, one of you, to be ignorant in regard to the footsteps that point heavenward, and the preparation that is essential if you shall enter the courts of the Lord. There is no excuse for one of us who have the Word. We are to take the Word, we are to believe and become a part of Christ in appreciating His love and His character and imitate that character. This is our work today in this world. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 27
And I want to state that it has been a hard battle to find out what we could, as Seventh-day Adventists, do to reach the people. And we could think of no way but to erect a sanitarium in Battle Creek many, many years ago. We had none among us. There were two or three established in different places, but then we began. O what self-denial, O what self-sacrifice we have to make! We had a family, and my husband for long time earned four dollars a week. Why? Because we wanted to build up the work. We wanted then to take hold and get the self-sacrificing spirit. We were doing the work, printing the paper, trying in every way by holding meetings to create an interest. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 28
Well, I am laboring alone now. I have been laboring alone for 24 years, except my two sons, who were laboring with me. But the Lord understands every case. When they said I must die; I could not live but a few weeks in my girlhood, the Lord has seen fit to preserve me till I am nearly eighty years old, and yet there is more freedom from pain that I have now than I have ever had in my life before. But I never regretted the pain. I took up the health reform. I have done nicely—two meals a day for forty years. Sometimes, of course, I could get my dinner, and I would have to take a little something before I slept when traveling. But this was a life of self-denial, and I want to say I do not regret one step that I have taken in the past of self-denial. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 29
I thought I should die if I left off my meat. But where did my instruction come from? It came from the God of heaven. It was that the flesh diet was weakening my whole physical constitution? I left if off immediately, and I have eaten a plain and simplest food, no tea, no coffee, or anything of that kind, and the simplest food that mortals could put in their stomach, and yet I have stood and talked to twenty thousand people in Groveland, Massachusetts. Twice I did that there. Well, I know there is a power from above that sustains me in trying to carry out the principles of health reform. And I have worked at it, and when I came from Australia I had my lessons. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 30
I had taken hold of it there, and we had worked on that naked ground of 1,500 acres. We had our schoolhouses, and one thing after another they would come with a beehive and say, Will you take our children into the school, etc. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 31
What we are establishing our schools for is to send forth missionaries. They are calling for us from all parts of the land. We are sending out missionaries to put the gospel in the hands of the people and in the minds of the people. That is what our work is today. When we came back here there was opened before me that we must have our sanitariums. We must place them in different parts of the country. But where can we get them? Where is the money? Well, then the light came, There are buildings that are waiting for you. There are buildings in different places that are waiting. So it was when we established our school here, and took them out of Los Angeles. We would get them out of the city, we will not build out sanitariums in the city. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 32
This is a place just such as one was presented to me. Well, I thought we may try to approach such a place, but we cannot do it for years, and then there came a letter. This place was for sale, Brother Burden wrote me. I wrote to him, Take hold of it at once. But others thought I was wild, and they said, Don’t get that on your hands. It will be an elephant. We do not mean it shall be an elephant. We mean that the glory of God shall be revealed, as this is established, and that the sick will be treated with rational means. What we mean is that the drugs shall be dispensed with. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 33
Then another institution was purchased for a school, and I went to see it, at Fernando. A beautiful school there. They wrote up, Sister White, Do you advise that we get the buildings here? And then they put in considerable objections: one building was built for a school and had not been occupied for years. I wrote back to them, Get it just as quick as you can get it. And they got the building, and they have it there, and are educating children and youth in order to send them out. Well, it takes something to create buildings from the very foundation, but they are prepared all ready for us, and the Lord makes it so we can get them. And we have got several. I thank the Lord with heart and soul and voice that He has let me have a part in the establishment of His work in this country, in Australia, and in Europe, and in different places. He has given me a part to act in it. I praise His holy name. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 34
Now we want that every one that has money in the banks that they are not using to let us hire it of you. We want to clear the debt on this house; we want to clear the debt on these premises. We had to put on an addition in order to treat the sick properly. We want an elevator, and we want improvements that must be made for the sick. And we want that if any one has means that he is laying aside, doing nothing, it is God’s property. The gold and the silver is mine. But here is the work; His work is to be advanced. He wants every one to take an interest in it, that you shall feel that you have acted something toward the establishment of the work for a school and for the sick, and we want everything to be done that can be done to relieve many. We are not ashamed at all, nor do not think that we are out of order to ask those that have God’s money, and God’s means, to help to do God’s work. That is what we ask you in the name of the Lord God of Israel. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 35
Well, now I must prepare to stop. I have a great deal more to say, but I do not know that it is best for me to talk any longer. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 36
We are waiting for the coming of the Son of man. I have been in San Francisco, I have spoken there four times. Of all the wickedness that is going on there, it is tremendous. The life of a person is not worth anything if they are crossed. Why? Because the liquor saloons are all opened, and the liquor is drugged and it makes men mad; therefore when they use this liquor, they do not know what they are doing, and they will bring in their plea every time, “I was drunk,” and they take that plea into court to relieve them from the penalty of death. How about these saloons there? It is the leading men, the very men that God will bring to account at last. What we want is to abolish all these saloons, everything like a saloon. It makes men mad, and they cannot resist temptation. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 37
What we want is to see the glory of God revealed. And, O, this beautiful place! I feel thankful to have the privilege now and then of coming in and speaking a few words of encouragement to them. And I want to say to every one of you, There is a heaven to win and a hell to shun. And we have our privilege of choice. We are not forced to go to heaven, but if we will accept of the infinite sacrifice that was made in our behalf by Jesus Christ, if we will accept it, as we claim many to have done by baptism, we come up out of the water, and then what is said? Ye are dead; buried with Christ in baptism, risen with Christ from the grave as you arise out of the water. Then “seek those things that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.” [Colossians 3:1.] And He will take you and let His blessing rest upon you. Now I am going to read a few words, then I will stop. Daniel 1:3-8. “Purposed in his heart.” Christ wants every man to purpose in his heart that he will not soil his brain power on any account whatever, but cherish it, that he may do the work of the Lord. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 38
Verse 9. So He will bless all of us if we will only educate ourselves to kindness, to tenderness, Christian politeness, so we shall have a great many more friends than if we take the opposite course. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 39
Verses 10-17. The works that every one ought to do, to do their best for themselves. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 40
Verses 17-20. Now there is the Bible testimony. I have tried to bring you Bible testimony on every point. I have not advocated anything but that which I know. I have proved the Lord on these points, and the Lord has strengthened and blessed, and I ask you every one to consider, Ye are laborers together with God. You are to bring about reformations to meet the mind and the will of a holy God, and your life is in His hands. Will you have an entrance within the gates of the city of our God, to become members of the royal family, and children of the heavenly King? Will you choose this day whom you will serve? May God give you intelligence to take your position fully on the Lord’s side. Temperance every day, self-denial, is required. The glory of the Lord shall go before us, and we shall see of His salvation. 22LtMs, Ms 186, 1907, par. 41