True Education

The Suffering of God

Those who think of the result of hastening or hindering the gospel think of it in relation to themselves and to the world. Few think of its relation to God. Few give thought to the suffering that sin has caused our Creator. All heaven suffered in Christ’s agony, but that suffering did not begin or end with His manifestation in humanity. The cross is a revelation to our dull senses of the pain that, from its very inception, sin has brought to the heart of God. Every departure from right, every deed of cruelty, every failure of humanity to reach God’s ideal, brings grief to Him. When there came upon Israel the calamities that were the sure result of separation from God—persecution by their enemies, cruelty, and death—it is said that “His soul could no longer endure the misery of Israel.” “In all their affliction He was afflicted.” Judges 10:16; Isaiah 63:9. As the “whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs” (Romans 8:22), the heart of the infinite Father is pained in sympathy. TEd 164.1

Our world is a vast gathering of sin-and-disease-stricken people, a scene of misery that we dare not allow even our thoughts to dwell upon. Yet God feels it all. In order to destroy sin and its results He gave His best Beloved, and He has put it in our power, through cooperation with Him, to bring this scene of misery to an end. “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:14. TEd 164.2

“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15) is Christ’s command to His followers. Not all are called to be ministers or missionaries in the ordinary sense of the term, but all may be workers with Him in giving the “glad tidings” to the world. To all, great or small, learned or ignorant, old or young, the command is given. TEd 164.3

In view of this command, dare we educate our sons and daughters for only a life of respectable conventionality, a life professedly Christian but lacking His self-sacrifice, a life on which the verdict of Him who is truth must be, “I know you not”? TEd 164.4

Thousands are doing this. They think to secure for their children the benefits of the gospel while they deny its spirit. But this cannot be. Those who reject the privilege of fellowship with Christ in service reject the only training that imparts a fitness for participation with Him in His glory. They reject the training that in this life gives strength and nobility of character. Many a father and mother, denying their children to the cross of Christ, have learned too late that they were thus giving them over to the enemy. They sealed their ruin not alone for the future but for the present life. TEd 164.5

Even in seeking a preparation for God’s service, many are turned aside by wrong methods of education. Life is too generally regarded as made up of distinct periods—the period of learning and the period of doing, of preparation and of achievement. In preparation for a life of service, young people are sent to school to acquire knowledge by the study of books. Cut off from the responsibilities of everyday life, they become absorbed in study and often lose sight of its purpose. The ardor of their early consecration dies out, and too many take up with some personal, selfish ambition. TEd 165.1

Upon graduation, thousands find themselves out of touch with life. They have so long dealt with the abstract and theoretical that when the whole being must be roused to meet the sharp contests of real life, they are unprepared. Instead of the noble work they had purposed, their energies are engrossed in a struggle for mere subsistence. After repeated disappointments, in despair even of earning an honest livelihood, many drift into questionable or criminal practices. The world is robbed of the service it might have received, and God is robbed of the souls He longed to uplift, ennoble, and honor as representatives of Himself. TEd 165.2