Throughout history Christ presented claims for individuals while Satan has advanced counterclaims. "But how long, Lord? When are You finally going to settle this? When are you going to vindicate Yourself?" Daniel 8:14 tells us that there will come a time when God will justify the claims for which secured the right at Clavary. At that time He will defend His claims for His people by showing the universe what they are made of. The controvesry began over the issue of whether anyone would serve God merely because He loved Him. Answering it, God will finally declare, "Here they are; Here are the people." How dare we say that it is a weeding! God is establishing His claims, vindicating His name through the lives of His people who reflect His image. You getthe picture of God standing in the heavenly sanctuary arguing in our behalf. It is foreign to the Word of God to suggest that God moves through His garden plucking weeds. Rather He is looking where He can vindicate His claims. When we grasp such a picture, then we can understand that "it is as necassary that He should keep us by His intercession as that He should redeem us with his blood. If He lets go HIs hold of us for one moment, Satan stands ready to destroy. Those purchased by His blood, He now keeps by His intercession" (MS 73 1893).
On the night of his high school graduation one of the boys in a small community, from a highly respected family, went out on the town and got drunk. He engaged in mischief and revelry that landed him in jail and his parents dishonor. The next day one of the town councilmen taunted the father, "How can you put up with this? If he were my son, I'd get rid of him right now."
The father studied him for a moment and then replied "I would to - if he were your son."
To know that we belong, to know that God is on our side - here is the secueity we need. George Eliot once said, "Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh the thoughts nor measure the words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them; keep what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away."
A friend of Clara Barton, founder of the american red cross, once reminded her of an especially cruel thing done to her years before. But Miss Barton seemed not to recall it. "Don't you remember it?" her friend asked.
"No," came the reply, "I distinctly remember forgetting that." That is what our Master is doing in the sanctuary right now. If any weeding goes on, it involves the plucking out of the past that which we don't want Him to remember.
What is God waiting for? What does it require to vindicate Him? How will the sanctuary work be justified? Where do we fit in? Paul write in Romans 8:19, "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God" (RSV). Ellen White tells us in Christ's Object Lessons, page 69, that Chirst is waiting with longing desire for the manifestation of Himself in His church. When the character of Christ shall be pefectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own."
Why, then, does He wait? If God were weeding, looking for the faults in our characters so that He could get rid of us, then He is a rather foolish God because He has passsed by many opportunities. By His delay we must reach one of two conclusions: Either He is a foolish God or an extremely loving one.If He wanted to catch us, He should have come before now. In 1883 Mrs. White declared that we should have "ere this been in the kingdom." So if God really wanted to weed, He should have done so already. But God is not weeding, He is waiting - His love that will not let us go is still waiting. And what for? How will it all take shape?
God's followers must face some final test, and it must be the same issue that received focus in the Garden of Eden. You remember the two trees. Why should man eat from one and not the other? For the simple reason that God asked him to. Nothing hanging on the trees made one preferred above the other. The only basis for such a decision was that God asked man to make that decision.
"Well, why?"
"Because I am your God."
"What do we get out of it?"
"My fellowship."
"What do you get out of it?"
"Your trust."
Will man serve God just because he loves Him?
Now if a hman being has free will, God can't flip a switch and close probation. Man must make a choice. But you know how we procrastinate. A pyhsician, in a questionaire, asked a patient,"Do you have any trouble making up your mind?"
The patient answered, "Yes and no."
We have been saying Yes and No for a long time. Somehow God must bring a test to the world in which the issue stands clear, in which people will have to decide one way or the other, and through making repeated decisions develope a permanent character tendency. Then the time will come when everyone will have rendered a choice because of the crisis and God can annouce, "He that is, let him be."
What test could God use? You would think that He would pick something out of His Decalogue. A Seventh-day Adventists we say that the Sabbath will have special meaning. But how will it? The Sabbath seems almost amoral. It doesn't seem to be a necessity to life. Look at the other nine commandments.
Consider the first one: Thou shalt have no other God's before me - worship God exclusively. God doesn't want to have competitors. If God exists, then that is the way it should be. My conscience can reinforce that. It makes sense.
The second commandment: Don't make graven images to God - worship God directly. Don't frame Him out of some static concept in your mind that you can manipulate. Don't make God in your image. Worship Him as He is, not as you would like Him to be. That makes sense. My conscience says Amen to that.
The third commandment: Worship God sincerely - don't be flippant with HIm, don't take Him for granted, be sincere. If there is a God, that is the way it should be. That's part of life.
Now let's skip the fourth commandment for a moment and look at the last six. Honor your father and your mother - respect authority. Sociologists would confirm it's concept. That makes sense.
Thou shalt not kill - respect life. Even better, respect personality, that which really makes life worth living. Criminologists would support it. Anyone can agree with that if he had any understanding of life at all
Thou shalt not commit adultery - be pure. Don't solicit the affections of another person and then use that person as a tool for your own self gratification. Don't take advantage of others. Treat them as persons, not just as bodies. That makes sense.
Thou shalt not steal - be honest.
Thou shalt not bear false witness - be true.
