THE CHANGED LABEL

ISAIAH 65:1

A. "HE SHALL CALL HIS SERVANTS BY ANOTHER NAME; SO THAT HE WHO BLESSETH HIMSELF IN THE EARTH SHALL BLESS HIMSELF IN THE GOD OF TRUTH" (R.V.)
  1. Among the combatants in the war it is necessary to keep changing the ciphers and the code names from time to time:
    1. This is done because there is always a risk that the enemy may get hold of them and use them to mislead and to destroy
    2. In that case what had been at first designed as a safeguard and guide for brave fighters should prove their snare and their destruction
  2. If communication between the fighters in line of duty and headquarters is to be kept up untapped and untampered with by a ceaselessly vigilant foe:
    1. There is need that we should ever be examining ourselves to see whether we be in the faith
    2. Whether we worship a god of traditions or the God of truth
B. CHANGED LABELS
  1. This is a most difficult undertaking either by God or man:
    1. Man's natural inclination tends to cleave to the thinking and habits inherited from the ancestors - good or bad - Mark 7:1-13
    2. That has been in all ages one of the chief obstacles to spiritual progress - an unwillingness to change labels
  2. To change labels implies:
    1. A change of ideas - Is. 55:7
    2. The abandonment of practices in our life that are almost second nature to us; Examples: It took God's special intervention to cause Saul to change his ideas about Christ and to depart from the traditions of his fathers - Acts 9:1-16; it took much convincing power by the Son of God to remove prejudice against the Gentiles from the mind of Peter - Acts 10:9-28; it took a vision from heaven to convince E. G. White of the importance to keep the seventh day Sabbath
C. GOD DOES CHANGE THE NAMES OF MEN NOT TO DISCOURAGE THEM BUT TO REGISTER SPIRITUAL PROGRESS
  1. Bible examples:
    1. God had bigger plans for a man with the name of Abram and so he changes his name to Abraham - Gen. 17:15
    2. When God saw a change in the life of Jacob, he changed his name to Israel - Gen. 32:28
  2. Changed names are indicative:
    1. Of changed lives including the thinking and the living; Examples: Saul became Paul when a transformation had taken place in his thinking and his life - Acts 13:9; the simple faith of Simon caused the Lord Jesus to change his name to Peter (a stone) - Matt. 16:18
    2. Of progress in the knowledge of the truth "The path of the just is as a shinning light shinning more and more unto the perfect day" - Prov. 4:18
    3. "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He the Spirit of truth is come, He shall guide you into all truth" - John 16:12-13
  3. There are those, even among God's remnant people, who frown upon new and different concepts of the word of God:
    1. They are ever ready to label their brethren with heresy when they emphasize new light
    2. To them progress in advanced light on the word of God is totally unwanted and uncalled for
    3. They forget that such an attitude by the Reformers brought a standstill of the reformation
    4. They overlook the fact that our grasp of the divine truths is at best very limited and is in great need of constant progress
  4. Bias and opposition to new light on the word of God are the walls:
    1. Which God sees continuously - Is. 49:16
    2. John calls these walls, "cages" - Rev. 18:1-2
    3. These walls are daubed with untempered mortar - Ez. 13:10-13


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