Warnings Against Sensational Teachings and Emotional Religion
17
Men who want to present something original will conjure up things
new and strange, and without consideration will step forward on these
unstable theories, that have been woven together as a precious theory,
and present it as a life and death question.—
Letter 136a, 1898
.
The Need for Clear Discernment
As we near the time when principalities and powers and spiritual
wickedness in high places will be brought into warfare against the
truth, when the deceiving power of Satan will be so great that if it were
possible he will deceive the very elect, we must have our discernment
sharpened by divine enlightenment, that we may know the spirit that is
of God, that we may not be ignorant of Satan’s devices. Human effort
must combine with divine power, that we may be able to accomplish
the closing work for this time.
Christ uses the wind as a symbol of the Spirit of God. As the
wind bloweth whither it listeth, and we cannot tell whence it cometh
or whither it goeth, so it is with the Spirit of God. We do not know
through whom it will be manifested.
[16]
But I speak not my own words when I say that God’s Spirit will pass
by those who have had their day of test and opportunity, but who have
not distinguished the voice of God or appreciated the movings of His
Spirit. Then thousands in the eleventh hour will see and acknowledge
the truth.
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall
overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed”
(
Amos 9:13
).
These conversions to truth will be made with a rapidity that will
surprise the church, and God’s name alone will be glorified.—
Letter
43, 1890
.
Fanaticism to Appear in Our Midst
Fanaticism will appear in the very midst of us. Deceptions will
come, and of such a character that if it were possible they would mis-
lead the very elect. If marked inconsistencies and untruthful utterances
were apparent in these manifestations, the words from the lips of the