This is another sermon where Ellen White speaks of parents grasping the divinity in Christ and thereby succeeding with their children.
Deuteronomy 4:32-35 “For ask now concerning the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether any great thing like this has happened, or anything like it has been heard. 33 Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live? 34 Or did God ever try to go and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35 To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD Himself is God; there is none other besides Him."
We are the people of His care, and He wants that we shall improve upon the great sacrifice that He has made in giving us Jesus, His only begotten Son. He sent Him into the world to come up in humanity, that humanity might grasp the divinity of Christ and have no excuse for sin. Every soul of us, if we are sinful, can repent, and humanity grasps divinity and humanity and divinity combined works out that all the corruptions that are in the world. Lust cannot overcome them, if we connect humanity with divinity. This is the very work that is before us. {Ms120-1909.21}
We do a great deal in our sanitariums to help the sick. They do not know how to treat their sick, and when we come in and we pray and we work, the Lord gives us the victory, and life is spared; then they are willing to be converted. They prayed for those that are not converted. They do not wait for them to be converted, but they come right in and offer their prayers to Jesus Christ who knows the heart, Jesus Christ who gave His life a sacrifice for man, that humanity might lay hold upon divinity. {Ms120-1909.28}
Christ was sent into the world and they crucified Him in the most cruel manner, but He was not left in the grave. He came up, and proclaimed over the sepulcher, He proclaimed the resurrection. He was the life and the strength and the grace through the obedience in His humanity. He did not lose His divinity. He held fast His divinity. They saw humanity and divinity combined. There they were combined, and that is what God wants of us today. I would not be here at my age, traveling as I am, if I did not think some souls would be benefited. {Ms120-1909.29}
Deuteronomy 4:40 "You shall therefore keep His statutes and His commandments which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the LORD your God is giving you for all time.”
Verse 40. “untoward.” They did not take to Christ. Why? “For God so loved the world ... should not perish.” [John 3:16.] Although they might lose their lives, yet their names are registered in the Lamb’s book of life, and they will come forth. Christ will bring them forth from the dead, and then He takes them, after that first resurrection, to the gate of the city, and He swings back the gate upon the glittering hinges, and the nations that have kept the truth shall enter in. And there He places the fathers and the mothers who have considered that the greatest work they could do in this world was to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Why? Because every soul that is really educated will educate their companions—every soul that will take hold of the righteousness of Christ—for humanity has the privilege of grasping divinity in Jesus Christ that they may overcome the temptations that are in the world through lust. This is what every one of us have to understand, and then to come in right relation to God. {Ms121-1909.18} …
He gave His life for humanity. And from the humanity in you, fathers, and the humanity in you, mothers, let us just grasp the divinity that is in Jesus Christ, so that you can express Him in your family in words, in tender words, in affectionate words. Thus you can have a power so that you can educate and train your children for the future life. How long? One that measures with the life of God. That life of heaven you can possess. I beg of you, for Christ’s sake, to consider not so much how you shall decorate your children with finery, or how much property you shall gain so as to exceed your neighbor, but what can you do that the humanity in your children, and in your own life, can grasp divinity in the life of Christ, and be overcomers day by day, and bind the children to Jesus. {Ms121-1909.27}
What a world we should have if we would do this! There is a tremendous responsibility resting upon the fathers and mothers, and the older brothers and older sisters. Altogether you can be a household of faith, and praise God and glorify God, and you can be happy, and you can win your neighbors to Christ. Your influence will tell for the glory of God. Parents, will you begin in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth—will you begin to have praying seasons in your house, and then with your neighbors’ children, and feel just as much interest that they shall be saved? They have souls. The humanity that is in you sanctified can grasp divinity, and there you can have power that your words will be applied to the hearts of the very ones that you ought to save. God help us. {Ms121-1909.28} …
The disciples met together to pray, and they sacrificed everything possible that they might reach the people where they were. And they did reach them, hundreds and thousands were converted. Why? Because the message came to them in its simplicity, in its truthfulness. In its very life it came to them, and this is the very work that we want to do and see done in Portland. I felt that I could not lay off my armor. I shall be, next November, 82 years old, and I have been laboring since I was fifteen years old in public labor. But we want souls. We want souls converted, and we want every soul to place themselves in right relation to God in simplicity, that He can move upon the human heart, and that you will be aroused so that your humanity shall see its privilege to lay hold of the very reason Christ was given to our world. Lay hold of what? Divinity. Divinity in Christ by a living faith. You can present that divinity to the Father; you can plead for your children and the unconverted and your own souls, and you can overcome the corruption that is in the world through lust, because your humanity has laid hold with divinity. Therefore the divinity of Christ is for the conqueror. {Ms121-1909.32}
But we leave this with you now, and we will have other words to speak in regard to this matter. But O, I want to see the children, I want to see them converted, and I want to see the fathers and mothers and the aged that now feel that no great responsibility rests upon them. Yes there is. I will tell you what it is—to keep ever before you the divinity of Christ. “God so loved the world ... everlasting life.” [John 3:16.] {Ms121-1909.33}
You think of it. Don’t let it pass from your mind, but work it out in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and if you do, then when the crown is laid upon your head, and the heads of your children, you will take these crowns and lay them at the feet of Jesus. The reward is already for us, and shall you make no great importance of that divinity that humanity can grasp? It is your only hope, and Christ preserved that divinity unsullied. Had He not, we should all perish, and you are to be co-laborers with Jesus Christ in this work of salvation. {Ms121-1909.34}
God help us that we may understand what it means with divinity and humanity combined. We must have the divinity of Christ by a living faith and act it out in living power. {Ms121-1909.35}