Manuscript Releases, vol. 13 [Nos. 1000-1080]

MR No. 1038—Look to God, not to Men

Every soul that is sanctified by the Holy Spirit will look to God for himself. The human agent will not look to other human agents to be told his duty. The divine Guide will prepare his heart for divine light. The Holy Spirit's work is to write God's thoughts deeply in the heart of man. “After those days, saith the Lord, I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts” [Jeremiah 31:33]. Such alone are Christ's living epistles, written, not with pen and ink, but by the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in the fleshy tables of the heart. 13MR 245.1

If men could see the tender love of Christ, there would be no lifting up one over another. The Lord Jesus came to our world, you may not say, to save them only, but to save us. In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. He traversed every path where souls were straying. He reached to the very depths of human woe and misery. What right, then, has one fellow laborer to give the cold shoulder to another fellow laborer because he presumes to think that he has not in all things done as he should have done? O man, remember that thou art only a man! What account will those in New Zealand render for their Phariseeism, for standing apart from their brother, leaving him to the devil's temptations? Satan works to rob man of his integrity toward God. 13MR 245.2

United with Christ, one may have all the power he needs. If he comes to Jesus Christ in His Word, he will realize that this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. But if his union with Christ is made through finite men, he is as weak as finite man. It will never do to make man the guardian of our sacred responsibilities, for no virtue goes from man to man. When a man is educated and trained to do as another man tells him to do, he ceases to rely on Christ.—Letter 50, 1897, pp. 8-9. (Written March 12, 1897, from “Sunnyside,” Cooranbong, NSW, to A. G. Daniells, E. R. Palmer, W. A. Colcord.”) 13MR 245.3

White Estate

Washington, D. C.,

December, 1983.