FROM GOD, WITH LOVE
By Kenneth H. Wood
“Whoever does not love does not know God, for
God is love” (1 John 4:8, NRSV).
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from
above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no
variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17).*
These passages from Scripture set forth two major
truths about God. The first is, God is a God of love. The second grows out of
the first: God gives giftsnot just ordinary gifts but “good”
and “perfect” gifts.
Satan has endeavored to obscure the truth about God.
Throughout the centuries and in every part of the world he has pictured God as
a God of anger, a God who wants to harm His earthly children, a God who watches
their every move in order to catch them in some mistake, and punish them. He
has portrayed God as being far more interested in justice than in mercy. But
here is the truth about God:
“Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were
the skies of parchment made,
Were ev’ry stalk on earth a quill, and
ev’ry man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above would
drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though
stretched from sky to sky.”
F. M. Lehman.
More than we do, we need to spend time focusing on
our heavenly Father as a God of love. We need to be clear in our own minds why
God watches us. He watches us closely not to judge us but because He loves us
and is interested in our welfare. It is said that when Isaac Watts was but a
child he was visiting in the home of an elderly Christian woman who asked him
to read a framed Bible text hanging on the wall. The text was Genesis 16:13 as
it reads in the King James Version: “Thou God Seest Me.” After Watts
had read it, the saintly woman said: “When you are older, people will tell
you that God is always watching you to see when you do wrong, in order to
punish you. I don’t want you to think of it that way. I want you to take
the text home and remember all your life that God loves you so much He
can’t take His eyes off you.”
I am grateful that my own mother had this concept.
Once in early childhood I went to her in tears with the comment, “I’m
afraid I’ll never get to heaven!” She took me in her arms and talked
to me about God’s love. Then she said, “I don’t think of God as
Someone who’s trying to keep people out of heaven. I think of Him as
Someone who’s trying to let everyone in that He possibly can.” Yes,
though He is a God of justice, He also is a God of mercy. He is a God of love.
God Loves to Give
And because He is a God of love, He loves to give. In
the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said: “If you then, being evil, know how to
give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in
heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Matt. 7:11). What an
understandable comparison! How easy to identify with! Parents enjoy finding
“just the right” gifts for their children, especially for the little
ones. Their hearts leap with pleasure as their children tear open the bright
wrappings and squeal with delight at sight of the gift. Using this joyful
experience as a base, Jesus continued, “How much more will your Father who
is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” Truly, God gives
“to those who ask.” But He does more. He gives some gifts to
everybody! Jesus highlighted this when He said: “Your Father in heaven . .
. makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just
and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45).
God is a giver! Whatever we havewhether little
or muchit has come to us as a gift from God. The apostle Paul highlighted
this well when he wrote: “We brought nothing into this world” (1Tim.
6:7). And David, the Psalmist, declared: “The earth is the Lord’s,
and all its fullness” (Ps. 24:1).
I like the story of the little girl who told an older
friend that she was going to buy her father a pair of slippers for his
birthday. “Where will you get the money?” the friend asked. Opening
her eyes wide, the little girl responded, “Why, Daddy will give me the
money.” And so it is with us. We receive everything from God. Nothing is
truly ours. Our “giving” to God is merely “returning.”
“We give Thee but Thine own,
Whatever the
gift may be;
All that we have is Thine alone,
A trust, O Lord, from
Thee.”Selected.
Ellen White tells us that God “loads us with His
benefits. We are indebted to Him for the food we eat, the water we drink, the
clothes we wear, the air we breathe. . . . He is a bountiful benefactor and
preserver.
“The sun which shines upon the earth, and
glorifies all nature, the weird, solemn radiance of the moon, the glories of
the firmament, spangled with brilliant stars, the showers that refresh the
land, and cause vegetation to flourish, the precious things of nature in all
their varied richness, the lofty trees, the shrubs and plants, the waving
grain, the blue sky, the green earth, the changes of day and night, the
renewing seasons, all speak to man [us] of his [our] Creator’s
love.”Counsels on Stewardship, p. 17.
Other Gifts
Beyond doubt the gift that most people prize above
all others is the gift of life itself. Of this gift Ellen White wrote: Young
people “are holding God’s gift of life. He makes the heart beat; He
gives strength to every faculty” (The Adventist Home, p. 497). This
precious gift God asks us to return to Him. His invitation is, “?My son,
give Me thine heart; I will keep it pure; I will satisfy its longings with true
happiness’” (ibid.).
In The Acts of the Apostles (p. 71), Ellen
White mentions other gifts“money, time, influence,” all of
which are to be used “as a means of advancing the work of the
gospel.”
Two of God’s gifts were first bestowed on the
human race in Edenthe Sabbath and marriage. Of marriage as a gift Mrs.
White has written: “Like every other one of God’s good gifts
entrusted to the keeping of humanity, marriage has been perverted by sin; but
it is the purpose of the gospel to restore its purity and
beauty.”The Adventist Home, p. 100. And of the Sabbath she
says: “It was a gift to all his [Adam’s]
posterity.”Sermons and Talks, vol. 1, p. 233. Every believer
who understands and embraces the many spiritual dimensions of the Sabbath truth
will welcome its weekly appearance as a gift of love from the Creator and
Redeemer of the human family. They will prize its sacred hours as a priceless
opportunity to become better acquainted with the great God of the universe and
His Son who died for them on the cross.
In this end-time of the world’s history, one of
God’s special gifts is the three-fold message of Revelation 14. Of this
gift God’s servant declares: “We knew that this present light was the
special gift of God. The impartation of this gift was the prerogative of
God.”Selected Messages, book 2, p. 110. Embodied in this gift
is the everlasting gospel, the judgment hour message, the true Sabbath, and a
call to separate from the traditions and confusion of modern Babylon
(Rev.18:4). What a great gift this is! It is a gift not only to be received and
enjoyed but to be shared with the entire world.
God’s Best Gift
In this overview of God’s gifts, let us now
place the gift of Jesus in its rightful placeat the top. This is the gift
that reveals the infinite dimensions of God’s love. “God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should
not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
If a little child asks mother or father, “How
much do you love me?” the parent sometimes responds by extending both arms
and spreading them out as far as possible, saying, “This much!”
followed by a hug and a kiss. But when we as a lost race of sinners ask God how
much He loves us, He points to Jesus dying in agony on the cross, and says,
“This much!” “The gift of Christ reveals the Father’s
heart. It testifies that, having undertaken our redemption, He will spare
nothing, however dear, which is necessary to the completion of the
work.”Counsels on Stewardship, p. 14.
“He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered
Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all
things?” (Rom. 8:32).
In a message urging Christians at the Christmas
season to recall “the rich gifts which Providence has so bounteously
bestowed,” Ellen White urged that above all they “remember the
priceless Gift of God’s dear Son. Here is an exhaustless theme for
thought.”Signs of the Times, Dec. 8, 1887.
To me, one of the most moving passages in all of Mrs.
White’s writings is her description of Christ on the cross. After
recounting the fact that Jesus had been arrested at midnight in Gethsemane,
“dragged to and fro from palace to judgment hall, . . . mocked, scourged,
[and] condemned,” she wrote: “Heaven viewed with grief and amazement
Christ hanging upon the cross, blood flowing from His wounded temples, and
sweat tinged with blood standing upon His brow. From His hands and feet the
blood fell, drop by drop, upon the rock drilled for the foot of the cross. The
wounds made by the nails gaped as the weight of His body dragged upon His
hands. His labored breath grew quick and deep, as His soul panted under the
burden of the sins of the world. . . . What a sight for the heavenly
universe!”The Desire of Ages, p. 760.
But out of the Gift of the life and death of Jesus
came another great giftjustification for repentant sinners. “Christ,
coming to earth as man, lived a holy life, and developed a perfect character.
These He offers as a free gift to all who will receive them. His life stands
for the life of men. They have remission of sins that are past, through the
forbearance of God. More than this, Christ imbues men with the attributes of
God. He builds up the human character after the similitude of the divine
character, a goodly fabric of spiritual strength and beauty. Thus the very
righteousness of the law is fulfilled in the believer in
Christ.”Ibid., p. 762.
And, unbelievable though it may seem, God loves His
redeemed earthly children as much as He loves His own Son. Jesus made this
clear in His final prayer to His Father in Gethsemane when He said: “You
have . . . loved them as You have loved Me” (John 17:23).
Spiritual Gifts
When Jesus returned to heaven, did God cease to love
His people? Did He stop giving them gifts? No. But in addition to the
numberless gifts that He had already bestowed, He gave a special kind of
giftsgifts of the Spirit, gifts often referred to as spiritual gifts. In
First Corinthians 12 the apostle Paul wrote: “Now concerning spiritual
gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed” (v. 1,
NRSV). Then, in verse 11 he said: “These are activated by one and the same
Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses”
(NRSV).
“The gifts He gave were that some would be
apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers”
(Eph. 4:11, NRSV). The purpose of the gifts was “to equip the saints for
the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (v. 12, NRSV).
In this same chapterFirst Corinthians
12the apostle compares the church to a body. He states that the church is
the body of Christ (vs. 12, 27) and that every person in the church is
important, just as every part of the human body is essential. He declares that
Christ is the Head (Eph. 4:15) and that each member fills an essential role in
making the body function successfully. The work that each member is to do is
determined by the Holy Spirit. The “Spirit works all these things,
distributing to each one individually as He wills” (1 Cor. 12:11).
“There are diversities of gifts, but the same
Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. There are
diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works in all. But the
manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to
one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, another the word of
knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to
another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of
miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another
different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues” (vs.
4-10).
Let us note two facts: 1) These spiritual gifts are
not merely natural talents that come through physical inheritance, and 2) the
Holy Spirit decides who is to receive them. The Spirit may take into account
the natural aptitudes or abilities of the one on whom the spiritual gift is to
be bestowed, but not necessarily. The Spirit knows the overall needs of the
body, Christ’s church, and makes the choice based on that need. Chaos
would result if spiritual gifts were distributed randomly or in response to
personal request. The human body is not all eyes, ears, arms, or legs. Neither
can the church body be all pastors, administrators, healers, or prophets.
The Gift of Prophecy
As we have already noted, the gift of prophecy is
among the gifts bestowed by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:10, 28; Eph. 4:11). The
importance of this gift becomes clear when we remember that in Old Testament
times prophets were called “seers.” This is mentioned in First Samuel
9:9: “Formerly in Israel, anyone who went to inquire of God would say,
?Come, let us go to the seer’; for the one who is now called a prophet was
formerly called a seer” (NRSV). Using Paul’s illustration, we might
say that prophets are the eyes of the church, which is the body of Christ. They
see what others do not see. They see behind the scenes in the great controversy
between Christ and Satan. They see dangers from false doctrines and false
teachers, and by revealing Satan’s plans they enable the church to avoid
retreat or defeat. No wonder the writings of prophets often contain the
expression, “I saw.” As the prophet Amos wrote: “Surely the Lord
God does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the
prophets” (Amos 3:7).
The Scriptures abound with incidents that reveal how
God has given His prophets special “eyes,” and has worked through
these inspired messengers for the benefit of His people. In the days of Elisha
the king of Syria was conducting war against Israel. Hoping to ambush the king
of Israel, “he consulted with his servants, saying, My camp will be
in such and such a place’” (2 Kings 6:8). But the prophet sent a
warning to the king, “Beware that you do not pass this place, for
the Syrians are coming down there’” (v. 9).
Several times the secret, evil plans of the Syrian
king were frustrated in this way by Elisha. “Therefore the heart of the
king of Syria was greatly troubled by this thing; and he called his servants
and said to them, Will you not show me which of us is for the king of
Israel?’ And one of his servants said, None, my lord, O king; but
Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that
you speak in your bedroom’” (vs. 11, 12). What a blessing it was for
God’s people to have a seer! And among the spiritual gifts promised to the
church this side of the cross, the gift of prophecy is one of the most
valuable.
The prophetic witness becomes increasingly important
as the church approaches the world’s final crisis. John the Revelator
described Satan’s attack against the church by saying, “The dragon
was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her
offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus
Christ” (Rev. 12:17). Of this time Jesus said, “False christs and
false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if
possible, even the elect” (Matt. 24:24).
“Those who endeavor to obey all the commandments
of God will be opposed and derided. They can stand only in God. In order to
endure the trial before them, they must understand the will of God as revealed
in His Word; they can honor Him only as they have a right conception of His
character, government, and purposes, and act in accordance with them. None but
those who have fortified the mind with the truths of the Bible will stand
through the last great conflict.”The Great Controversy, pp.
593, 594.
In a very real sense, the Holy Scriptures in their
entirety are the testimony of Jesus and are a product of the Spirit of
prophecy. This is clear from Revelation 19:10 that records the response of the
angel when John fell at his feet to worship him. The angel protested, saying,
“See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your
brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of
Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.’”
But in addition to the written Word, throughout past
ages when God’s people faced new challenges, trials, or dangers, the Holy
Spirit inspired men and women and gave them the “testimony of Jesus”
to meet the unique needs of the hour. Uriah Smith, well-known pioneer of the
Advent movement, likened the role of these prophets to that of a pilot who
boards a ship as it approaches the port of its destination. While on the high
seas the captain, with his experience and general expertise, is capable of
guiding the ship safely. But as the ship enters the narrow channel of a foreign
port, with giant rocks possibly concealed beneath the surface of the sea, the
captain slows his ship and welcomes a pilot aboard. He recognizes that the
specialized situation requires someone with added skill and more complete
knowledge of the dangers and challenges that lie ahead. By accepting the pilot,
the captain is cooperating with the owner of the ship who arranged for this
special help before the ship began its voyage. (Editorial in the Review and
Herald, Jan. 13, 1863.)
Special Help in the End-time
Thus, when God’s last-day church needed special
help to meet Satan’s final attacks successfully, God gave visions to a
young woman named Ellen Harmon. Beginning immediately after the Great
Disappointment of 1844, Jesus inspired young Ellen to help His people regain
confidence in the way the Lord had led them. She joined with them in careful
study of the Bible, the “testimony of Jesus” that God had provided
for seekers of truth. Often they spent whole nights in prayer and study,
endeavoring to understand God’s will as found in the Scriptures. And God
rewarded them with additional light and a wonderful sense of His presence. At
times, however, when the group could not agree on the meaning of a Bible
passage, God used Ellen to define what was error and what was truth. The usual
result was unity. In 1846 Ellen married James White, a young man who had been
much involved in proclaiming the soon coming of Christ. Gradually, under the
urging of the Holy Spirit, Ellen White wrote out the messages and counsel she
received from the Lord. These messages helped the early Adventists avoid
fanaticism, unite on doctrine and organization, and attempt to reach the entire
world with the message of Revelation 14.
Of her experience she testified: “The Spirit of
God rests upon me with power, and I cannot but speak the words given me. I dare
not withhold one word of testimony. . . . I speak the words given me by a power
higher than human power, and I cannot, if I would, recall [retract] one
sentence. In the night season the Lord gives me instruction in symbols, and
then explains their meaning. He gives me the word, and I dare not refuse to
give it to the people.”The 1888 Materials, pp. 578, 579.
During her 70-year ministry Mrs. White wrote
approximately 25 million words, resulting in 100,000 printed pages. Her
writings included letters, diaries, books, and articles in periodicals. Among
her best-known works are The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan
and Steps to Christ, which has been translated into more than 140
languages. Not surprisingly, the theme of the first chapter of Steps to
Christ is God’s great love for our world and the human race. Both in
writing and in speaking she emphasized this theme, ever pointing to Jesus and
His matchless charms as the greatest evidence of God’s love. The overall
theme of her writings is the great controversy between Christ and Satan, which
began in heaven and has increased with ferocity here on earth. In line with
this theme, she made clear that every human being is involved in the
controversy. “To restore in man the image of his Maker, to bring him back
to the perfection in which he was created, to promote the development of body,
mind, and soul, that the divine purpose in his creation might be
realizedthis was to be the work of redemption. This is the object of
education, the great object of life.”Education, pp. 15, 16.
Burdened to win souls and give guidance in character
development, she wrote books on a wide range of subjectseducation,
healthful living, family life, temperance, evangelism, sacred history, medical
ministry, and other subjects that might help advance the cause of truth and
prepare a people for the return of Christ.
At times students of the Bible compare the Advent
movement to the experience of Israel in leaving Egypt and journeying to the
Promised Land. In this connection they quote Hosea 12:13: “By a prophet
the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet he was preserved.”
We all know how God used Moses to guide His people from Egypt to Canaan. Every
Adventist should know also the exciting story of how God used Ellen White
during the seven decades of her ministry, and how He is still using her today
through her writings. There is much truth in the statement that is commonly
repeated: “Without Ellen White there would be no Adventist church as we
know it today.” God knew that His last-day church would need special help,
and, like the great Gift-giver that He is, He provided it in what Adventists
often speak of as the “Spirit of prophecy.”
Like the early church in the city of Corinth, it can
be said of the remnant church: “I thank my God always concerning you for
the grace of God which was given you by Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in
everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of
Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting
for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor.1:4-7).
As the apostle Paul considered the gift of Jesus and
the wonderful evidences of God’s grace in the Corinthian church, he
exclaimed: “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” (2 Cor.
9:15). And today, as we review God’s infinite love and the countless gifts
that flow from that love, we can well borrow Paul’s language and say,
“Thanks be to God for His indescribable gifts, especially the Gift of
Jesus and the testimony of Jesus, which is the Spirit of prophecy!”
____________
*All Bible
quotations are from the New King James Version (NKJV), unless otherwise
indicated. |