The Scriptures Testify of God

Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. John 5:39.
The study book of the highest value is that which contains the instruction of Christ, the Teacher of teachers.—Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students, 389.
The words of the living God are the highest of all education.—Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students, 381.
The Author of nature is the Author of the Bible. Creation and Christianity have one God. God is revealed in nature, and God is revealed in His Word. In clear rays the light shines from the sacred page, showing us the living God, as represented in the laws of His government, in the creation of the world, in the heavens that He has garnished. His power is to be recognized as the only means of redeeming the world from the degrading superstitions that are so dishonoring to God and man….
When the Bible is made the guide and counselor, it exerts an ennobling influence upon the mind. Its study more than any other will refine and elevate. It will enlarge the mind of the candid student, endowing it with new impulses and fresh vigor. It will give greater efficiency to the faculties by bringing them in contact with grand, far-reaching truths…. Let the Bible be received as the food of the soul, the best and most effectual means of purifying and strengthening the intellect.—Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students, 395, 396.
In God’s Word only do we behold the power that laid the foundations of the earth, and that stretched out the heavens…. In the Word of God the mind finds subjects for the deepest thought, the loftiest aspirations. Here we may hold communion with patriarchs and prophets, and listen to the voice of the Eternal as He speaks with men.—Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students, 52.
With God at Dawn p. 10
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Prayer Requests
—-Pray for my friend and her family. Her nephew wants to do her harm although she is nice to them. Rosemary
—-Please pray that Ron will pass his test on Monday. Rose
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Dear Friends,
Before I retired, I worked in the court system. I really liked my job as it had a lot of variety both in the defendants we processed and also in the types of crimes, so I didn’t get bored. Often the defendants that came into our office complained that they have to wait for an interview. They did not feel that they should have to be inconvenienced. They seemed to think that they were getting picked on and did not consider the inconvenience and heartaches that they had caused others.
One time we had a defendant come in whose type of case took longer than some others, so she had a longer wait. The longer she waited, the more upset she became. As she saw defendants who had come in to the office after her, leave before her, she complained louder and longer. She was very annoying.
When her turn came for her interview, however, her whole demeanor changed. She was polite and cooperative to the court service officer. As soon as she left his presence, however, she changed back into the her old self and proclaimed that the whole thing was stupid. I am sure we all know people like that, who are nice in front of others but quite the opposite at home.
That’s what sin does. It muddles our thinking. It makes us selfish and self-centered, so that we do not consider that we have done wrong or made others’ lives unpleasant. Sin takes away our care and concern for others. We become like the Pharisees who appeared righteous to the common people but behind closed doors they were full of iniquity. Yet, their eyes were blinded to that fact. They considered themselves better and more deserving of all good things than were the common people.
Even though they fooled the people, they could not fool the Judge of all the earth. Jesus rebuked them over and over again. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty. Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein. And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? . . . . Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” Matt 23:13-38
We read of those men who lived so long ago and feel that we could never be as they, yet how often the sin in our own lives muddles our thinking, makes us selfish, causes us to have a form of godliness, but not allow the Holy Spirit to change us from within.
Let us come to Jesus for the cleansing that we so much need. (1 John 1:9-2:3 Let us remember that the Great Judge of the Universe is watching all that we do, all that we think, and all that we say.
Rose