Excerpt from Sermon on Acts 2
"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."
The following excerpt comes from a sermon of Mrs. E. G. White on Acts chapter 2. After speaking of the power that came after the disciples had prayed for ten days, Mrs. White focused on the conversion of children, and the role that parents played in that regard. Of especial interest are her comments on the role of parents grasping the divinity of Christ in the process.
For the promise is unto you and your children. You are to work tenderly with them, not to bring your children up any way haphazard, and feel not responsibility. Ye are laborers together, together with God. We are to take the Word of the living God, and do our duty to our children. You are to work tenderly with them, no scolding, no pounding their flesh in anger. They may need punishment, but let it be brought to them with tears in your eyes. Do not make them feel that you wish to humiliate them, and that you want to place them in the worst position possible, but just talk with them and pray with them. {Ms121-1909.19}
I find with the many children that I have taken to bring up, where I saw that they were not educated right, I could talk with them, I could pray with them, and there was no need of pounding their flesh. Now, God wants us to be sensible men and women. He wants us to do right. He wants us to be patient. He does not want us to eat everything that comes in our way. There is a work carried on continually in your system, because of the things you put in your stomach, which never should be there. {Ms121-1909.20}
He wants the father and the mother to be temperate in all things, and speak kindly, never scold nor fret to the husband, or the husband to the wife. That is not Christian. There is no Christianity in that. What we want is to be Christians in every sense of the word. What we want is to seek the Lord with all our hearts, and be converted. Unless you do, your family may go to perdition. Fathers, mothers, what about the souls of your children? {Ms121-1909.21}
If you have acted your part righteously, the gates of the city of God will be thrown back upon their glittering hinges, and there your children will be that you tried to educate line upon line, and precept upon precept, here a little and there a little. You are guarding them against the influences that are against Christ. He wants you to have the Christ spirit. Christ gave His life. The Father gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. That is what we want them to have. And when they come to the gates of the city, and there are the crowns that are to be placed upon their heads, He throws back the gates and welcomes them in, parents and children. O with what gladness He said, when He was on the earth, Suffer little children to come unto Me. {Ms121-1909.22}
There were mothers leaving their homes, and it does not say whether they had a father or not, but they went to see Jesus. They were so troubled and worried to know what to do, and if they could get a blessing from Jesus, O, they thought, how it would help them. So the mothers gathered children as they went along, mothers and children, and they came. Here Christ was, teaching a large crowd of people, and the disciples forbade them. Why, said they, the Master is teaching, He cannot be interrupted in His work. Christ caught the words, and He turned, and He rose upon His feet, and He said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” [Matthew 19:14.] {Ms121-1909.23}
And there will be a large company if fathers and mothers will do their duty to their children, if they will educate them from the Bible, if they will train them there, they can bring their children up with joy. As Christ sees the children, He embraces them in His arms, the little ones, and takes them into the city of God, and then there is music in heaven among the angels, and the harps are placed in the hands of the parents. Parents and children are together saved, eternally saved to have a life that measures with the life of God. {Ms121-1909.24}
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He took these little children, when the mothers brought them, and encircled them in His arms, “Suffer the little children to come unto me for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” [Verse 14.] Fathers and mothers, don’t speak a cross word to your children. Do not speak words that will discourage them. They are little children; they are not grown up. They need to be educated and trained at every step, and they want an example set before them of the father and mother in every respect. And if they are corrected, let it be in kindness and tenderness, that it is to save their souls. The little children were clinging to the knees of Christ, and their ways were around His neck. Just think how the Saviour felt, and you try to feel just as He felt. Bring them to the Saviour. He died for them. {Ms121-1909.26}
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}
God is our helper. We are not left to ourselves to worry our way through nobody knows how. No, we are to have that life that measures with the life of God. Make efforts, self-denying efforts, and you may develop the missionary spirit wherever you are. Try to save the souls that are ready to perish, and build up the cause of God in our world. The Lord wants us to stand before Him. Fully answering the purpose of God in your relation to each other, and in your relation to God, you will save some powers to be given to the work of helping you hand to hand in saving other souls. {Ms121-1909.29}
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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 they [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}