Earmarks of Erroneous Teaching
77
testimonies of the Spirit of God can have no effect on you. Has the
Lord opened to you or your daughter, your wife or your children, the
disobedience of Sister White? If she has walked contrary to God, will
you show in what? My duty is to make plain statements of my position;
for you misinterpret my testimony, wrench it from its true meaning,
and ring in my name whenever you think it will enforce whatever you
have to say. But when the testimonies do not harmonize with your
theories, I am excused, because I am the false prophet! There are
many ways of evading the truth.
You seem to have special bitterness against Elder [Uriah] Smith,
and some others of our brethren, and you have talked out these feelings
in your family, thus leavening them. The Lord has seen fit to counsel
Elder Smith, to give him words of reproof because he had erred; but is
this an evidence that God has forsaken him?—No. “As many as I love
I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent” (
Revelation
3:19
). The Lord reproves wrongs in His people, but is this an evidence
that He has rejected them?—No. There are errors in the church, and
the Lord points them out by His own ordained agencies, not always
through the testimonies. Now shall we seize these reproofs and make
capital of them, and say that God is not imparting to them His light and
love?—No. The very work that God is trying to do for them shows that
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He loves them, and wants to draw them away from paths of danger.
God has spoken in reference to yourself. That which you term
light from heaven, He has pronounced darkness, and the visions born
of this error, He calls a delusion. Will you believe this testimony? Will
you heed what the Lord has spoken through Sister White, or will you
cast the word of the Lord behind you? Will you quote this testimony
as readily, and make capital of it, as you have of testimonies of reproof
given your brethren who have erred in some things? “O consistency,
thou art a jewel!”—
Letter 11, 1890
.
A Wrong and Right Use of Inspired Counsel
[
Addressed to Mr. Garmire.—Compilers
.]
My brother, you have been deceived yourself, and have deceived
others. You have not searched the Scriptures in the right way. You
must search them to learn the mind of God, not to prove your theory.