THE EARNESTNESS in my fellow minister's voice echoed the feelings in my own heart as he questioned, "How are we going to stir up our people? How can we get them to study and follow God's revealed will?"
We had been studying about the shaking what causes it, what is needed to stand through it, who will stand? As the realization that many Seventh-day Adventists are not going to make it in their present condition swept over us, the several ministers united in study asked one another the question "Brethren! what can we do?"
A recently studied text came to mind, "How about this?" I responded, "I think Jeremiah 23:22 has the answer." We read the text together. " 'But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them away from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.'"
Someone suggested that we ought to tie in with this text the statement found in Testimonies, volume 6, page 119: "The great reformatory movement must begin in presenting to fathers and mothers and children the principles of the law of God."
"It seems clear to me," I said, "that we have to present to our people God's pure truth. His law, His words, must possess our lives, and then we are to present it to the people. God says that's how the reform is to begin."
"But," one of the ministers responded, "we can't just preach to our people. We need to make them want to study."
"That's right," another minister spoke up. "I was just reading in The Ministry of Healing, pages 156 to 157 these words: 'It is of little use to try to reform others by attacking what we may regard as wrong habits. Such effort often results in more harm than good. . . . We must offer men something better than that which they possess, even the peace of Christ, which passeth all understanding.' "
Then he added, "We need to use love somehow to get our people interested. We can't just hit them over the head with the Testimonies. We need to do as Christ did and show them 'something better.' "
The meeting soon broke up with most of our questions still unanswered. What can we do? How can we get our people to study and prepare for the crisis?
After seriously studying this problem, I am convinced the answer has been given. We are to present God's words, His law. That is how reform be gins. That is where it began in the days of Jeremiah and Josiah. The directions are clear. What is not clear is our understanding of what the law really means to us. Somehow we have the idea that the law is negative, or at least tends toward a negative effect.
Actually, however, God's law is the "something better" we are to offer people. "His law is the echo of His own voice, giving to all the invitation, 'Come up higher. Be holy, holier still.' Every day we may advance in perfection of Christian character." —Ibid., p. 503.
Volume one of The SDA Bible Commentary, page 1105, adds, "That law of ten precepts of the great est love that can be presented to man is the voice of God from heaven speaking to the soul in promise, 'This do, and you will not come under the dominion and control of Satan.' There is not a negative in that law, although it may appear thus. It is DO, and Live." —Ellen G. White Comments, on Ex. 20:1-17.
Notice—"not a negative" in the Ten Commandments. That's quite a surprise!
Let's take an example: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Actually, this is a divine commitment that as we surrender fully to Him there will be no other gods between us. The things we used to serve—money, appetite, hate, fear, self—the many, many gods are now gone! We are free! Free to serve God and Him alone. As we feel the tug of temptation—one of our former gods seeking to come between us—the glory of God's character in His law looms before us, and our plea goes up: "Lord, You promised there will be no other gods between us. We claim this promise. We don't want these gods to control us. We choose to serve You. Please help us!" God answers, rebuking the tempter, and we find the joy and peace that comes from serving only Him.
What a blessing! What peace and assurance! His law is not merely an attack on our wrong habits, but the assurance of "something better" than what we now have. Freedom from sin. Freedom from the dominion and control of Satan.
