Gods Sabbath

AN E DUCATION IN G OD ’ S W AYS

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power of God for the fulfillment of His promises. And there were other lessons that, amid the solitude of the mountains, Moses was to receive. In the school of self-denial and hardship he was to learn patience, to temper his passions. Before he could govern wisely, he must be trained to obey.” Patriarchs and Prophets , 247.3. Moses’ training in obedience had to be deep and thorough in order to prepare him for a work in which God, knowing the re quirements for success, intended that no thread of human devis ing be introduced. If Moses had not learned that both general and specific orders come from God and must be obeyed without question or modification, he certainly could not have led the peo ple in God’s ways. The Lord considered Moses ready for his lifework after forty years in Midian. What a different man he had become! He no longer possessed any confidence in himself. He realized how weak and frail the human agent is and he shrank from the task before him. So insignificant did he appear in his own eyes that he could not at first accept that God was calling him, of all peo ple, to so tremendous a responsibility. Most of us hold a superficial view of what obedience to God in volves. Many who confidently believe that they are faithfully ob serving God’s commandments, are continually making their own plans for the advancement of His work. They do not realize that by so doing they are putting themselves as gods in Jehovah’s place and thus, by breaking the first commandment, they have in fact broken them all. This sin is the result of self-sufficiency. Whenever we commit it, it is because of our meager views of God’s might and majesty, and exalted ideas of our own abilities. The certain cure is to have this sense of values reversed by being brought into close contact with the Infinite. It was for this reason that God directed Moses to spend those forty years among the mountains of Midian. “Shut in by the bulwarks of the mountains, Moses was alone with God. The magnificent temples of Egypt no longer im pressed his mind with their superstition and falsehood. In the Another Lesson for Us