General Conference Bulletin, vol. 5

TRUST AND OBEY

We shall be brought into strait places; but we do not want to wait until then before we learn to trust and obey. Now, just now, is our day of opportunity and privilege. When the light of truth is shining upon us, we are to learn the lesson. Let us plead with God to give us a true conception of His character and a willingness to obey Him. GCB March 30, 1903, page 9.1

We are to stand in the strength and power of Israel’s God. Shall we do it, brethren? Or shall we murmur and complain, looking at the obstacles in the way, and making a mountain out of a mole-hill? To-day God gives His people, to confirm their faith, evidences of His power such as He gave to Israel. Will they make these evidences of no effect? Will they act as if God had not wrought in their behalf? The Lord wants us to acknowledge His power and His grace and His great salvation which He has brought us at an infinite cost,—in the death of His only-begotten Son. GCB March 30, 1903, page 9.2

We are living in a day of trial, a day of probation, a day of test. God is proving His people, to see whether He can work in their behalf. He can not work for them if they open their hearts to the impulses of the enemy. He can not cooperate with them if they trust in men in the place of looking to Jesus, and rejoicing in His goodness and His love. He wants to make of us a people through whom He can reveal His grace, and He will do this if we will only give Him opportunity, if we will open the windows of the soul heavenward and close them earthward, against human rabble, against murmuring, complaining, and faultfinding. GCB March 30, 1903, page 9.3

But just as surely as we fail to heed the messages that for the last fifty years the Lord has been giving, just as surely as we turn from these messages to human impulses and human science, ?? laws that are directly opposed to God’s Word, so surely will we reap the consequence. GCB March 30, 1903, page 9.4

“And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying. How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against Me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel which they murmur against Me.” Those who to-day murmur against God’s appointed agencies, weakening the confidence of the people in them, are doing the same work that the children of Israel did. The Lord hears every murmuring word. He hears every word that detracts from the influence of those whom He is using to proclaim the truth that is to prepare a people to stand in the last days. GCB March 30, 1903, page 9.5

“How long shall I bear with this evil congregation? ... Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in Mine ears, so will I do unto you: your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old, and upward, which have murmured against Me, doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware unto you to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.” GCB March 30, 1903, page 9.6

“And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness. After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know My breach of promise. I the Lord have said, I will surely do it unto all this evil congregation, that are gathered together against Me: in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die. And the men, which Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the land, even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the Lord. But Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of the men that went to search the land, lived still. And Moses told these sayings unto all the children of Israel: and the people mourned greatly.” GCB March 30, 1903, page 9.7

The lesson of this record is for us. The Lord had prepared the way before His people. They were very near the promised land. A little while and they would have entered Canaan. They themselves delayed the entering. In the first place, it was they who requested that spies should be sent up to search the land. Rehearsing to them the history of the unbelief and the trouble that it brought to them. Moses said. “And ye came near unto me every one of you, and said. We will send men before us, and they shall search us out the land, and bring us word again by what way we must go up, and into what cities we shall come.” GCB March 30, 1903, page 9.8

The request that the spies be sent into Canaan showed a lack of faith; for God had told the people plainly that they were to take possession of the land. Why then did they need to send spies to search it? Had they put their trust in God, they could have gone straight in. God would have gone before them. He knew the best way in which to lead them through their difficulties. But they wanted to know what was before them, and when Moses took their request to the Lord, He told him to let them have their own way. GCB March 30, 1903, page 9.9

Brethren and sisters, from the light given me, I know that if the people of God had preserved a living connection with Him, if they had obeyed His Word, they would to-day be in the heavenly Canaan. Oh, how sad it makes me to see the way hedging up before us, and to know that it is becoming more and more difficult to carry the message to the people! We have not done a hundredth part of the evangelical work that God desires us to do among our neighbors and friends. In every city in this land there are those who know not the truth. There are many new fields in which we must plow the ground and sow the seed. God says to us: “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.” We are to make known to the men and women of the world what God’s test is, that if they will they may refuse to receive the seal of the Papacy. GCB March 30, 1903, page 9.10

God told the people that for forty years they were to wander in the wilderness. But they were determined to enter Canaan. “Lo, we be here,” they said, “and will go up unto the place which the Lord hath promised; for we have sinned.” GCB March 30, 1903, page 9.11

“And Moses said. Wherefore now do ye transgress the commandment of the Lord? but it shall not prosper. Go not up, for the Lord is not among you: that ye be not smitten before your enemies. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and ye shall fall by the sword: because ye turned away from the Lord, therefore the Lord will not be with you. But they presumed to go up to the hilltop: nevertheless the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and Moses, departed not out of the camp. Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites, which dwelt in that hill, and discomfited them, even unto Hormah.” GCB March 30, 1903, page 9.12

When we see what God can and will do for us, when we know that His church is the supreme object of His regard in this world, why are we not willing to believe His Word? The powers of darkness will assail us, but we have a God who is above all. He can take care of His people. He can make a refuge for His people wherever they are. What He wants us to do is to stand where He can reveal His glory through us, that it may be known that there is a God in Israel, and that in behalf of His people He will manifest His power. GCB March 30, 1903, page 10.1

I look at these flowers, and every item I see them I think of Eden, They are an expression of God’s love for us. Thus He gives us in this world a little taste of Eden. He wants us to delight in the beautiful things of His creation, and to see in them an expression of what He will do for us. He wants us to live where we can have elbow room. His people are not to crowd into the cities. He wants them to take their families out of the cities, that they may better prepare for eternal life. In a little while they will have to leave the cities. These cities are filled with wickedness of every kind,—with strikes and murders and suicides. Satan is in them, controlling men in their work of destruction. Under his influence they kill for the sake of killing, and this they will do more and more. Every mind is controlled either by the power of Satan or the power of God. If God controls our minds, what shall we be?—Christian gentlemen and Christian ladies. God can fill our lives with His peace and gladness and joy. He wants His joy to be in us, that our joy may be full. GCB March 30, 1903, page 10.2

If we place ourselves under objectionable influences, can we expect God to work a miracle to ?? the results of our wrong course?—?? indeed. Get out of the cities as soon as possible, and purchase a little piece of land. where you can have a garden, where your children can watch the flowers growing, and learn from them lessons of simplicity and purity. “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Parents, point your children to the beautiful things of God’s creation, and from these things teach them of His love for them. Point them to the lovely flowers,—the roses and the lilies and the pinks,—and then point them to the living God. GCB March 30, 1903, page 10.3