God Wants to Lead His People - If They Will Only Let Him

Christ Triumphant - A Devotional by E.G. White

God Wants to Lead His People - If They Will Only Let Him

Today's Text: Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. 1 Samuel 15:22

The Message:      The last days are upon us, and Satan is working with all his hellish arts to deceive and destroy souls. Reproofs by testimony are met almost universally, by the ones corrected and reproved, with "I believe the testimonies, but I do not understand them." The Lord has corrected their wrong ways in order to save them from unhappiness, deception, and ruin; but they pass on the same as if light and warnings had never come to them. If they were in harmony with God, they would not be departing from Him. It is because they are so far departed from God that they do not hear His voice as He calls to them, "Return unto me, and I will return unto you," "and I will heal your backslidings."      Saul, after he had disobeyed the requirement of God to destroy the Amalekites, met Samuel and said, "Blessed be thou of the Lord: I have performed the commandment of the Lord. And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears?"... The answer was the same that we have heard in similar cases-an excuse, a falsehood: "The people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God." Saul did not say "my" or "our," but "thy" God. Many who profess to be serving God are in the same position as Saul-covering over ambitious projects, pride of display, with a garment of pretended righteousness....      Samuel looked upon Saul with indignation, yet with deep pity and undisguised grief for the sinful course of one he loved sincerely; but this love must not close his lips.... Samuel then spake the cutting words of the Lord.... "Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king."...      Oh, how few can know the sadness of heart that Samuel bore back to Ramah! God had laid upon him the burden of Saul and the burden of this terrible message that he must bear to the monarch.      Sinners seldom feel right in regard to reproof. They blame the ones who open their lips to speak the words of warning, as though it were a personal matter. In their blindness they fail to see that they are flinging from them, in their stubborn resistance, the last offer of light and mercy.-Manuscript 1a, 1890.

Commentary: My friend, what was true in the time of Saul is true today.  There are many in the church who have only a pretended righteousness, a form of godliness, while they deny the power of God to transform their lives.  The prophet Samuel said to Saul "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." (1 Samuel 15:22). The condition of God's end-time church is in a most terrible condition.  The Faithful and True Witness says "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:" (Revelation 3:17).  The church is wretched because she has set aside the worship of the One true God of the Bible for the false god of the trinity, and as such no longer has the righteousness of Christ. She is blind to her condition because the trinity offers a form of godliness, but denies the Son of God as well as the Father.  "Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also." (1 John 2:22,23). My friend, how long will we waver between two opinions? If the LORD be God then follow Him. (1 Kings 18:21).  The time is soon to be upon us when we will be called to answer for our faith.  We will have to decide which God we worship.  Whether the God of the Bible or the god of man.  Both will claim to be worshiping God, but only those who worship the One true God of the Bible will be saved. May you "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15). God bless,

Video of the Week The Paradigm Shift - Part 1 - The Trinity Doctrine Exposed A powerful message from Nader Mansour on how the trinity doctrine became part of the Seventh-day Adventist church.