I think it would be very becoming to all who claim to follow Christ, to be indeed learning of Christ,—his methods, and his meekness, and lowliness of heart. We have a decided message to bear. In Jude 1-8 we have the description of the pollution of the world, and the working agencies of Satan to corrupt the world; yet Michael, the Archangel, when contending with the devil, disputed about the body of Moses, and dared not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke thee.” SpTA07 59.2
“And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him.” Zechariah 3:1. These things are written for our benefit, and we are to study the word in all these things now, for they concern us particularly. There is to be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation. Our work is to study to weed out of all our discourses everything that savors of retaliation and defiance and making a drive against churches and individuals, because this is not Christ's way and method. He did not pronounce scathing rebukes against those who did not know the truth, but against those whom God had made the depositaries of sacred responsibilities, a people chosen and favored with every temporal and spiritual advantage, and yet bearing no fruit. The most solemn responsibility for the Jewish nation was when Jesus was in their midst. It was that generation, the generation which rejected him, that was the guilty one. Jesus, speaking sometimes by warning, by judgments, by blessing given and withdrawn, said, “They would none of my counsel, they despised all my reproofs.” If thou art destroyed, it is thyself alone who art responsible. “Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.” Warning, expostulation, forbearance, and patience are about to cease. Mark the cursing of the fig tree, representing the Jewish nation, covered with leaves of profession, but no fruit to be found thereon. The curse is pronounced upon the fig tree, which represents the moral, thinking, living agent, cursed of God, living as were the Jews for forty years after this event, yet dead. Mark, the other trees, representing the Gentiles, were not covered. They were leafless, making no pretension to having a knowledge of God. Their time of fruit-leaving was not yet. SpTA07 59.3