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Testimonies for the Church Volume 3
Duty to Reprove Sin
I have been shown that God here illustrates how He regards sin
among those who profess to be His commandment-keeping people.
Those whom He has specially honored with witnessing the remarkable
exhibitions of His power, as did ancient Israel, and who will even
then venture to disregard His express directions, will be subjects of
His wrath. He would teach His people that disobedience and sin are
exceedingly offensive to Him and are not to be lightly regarded. He
shows us that when His people are found in sin they should at once
take decided measures to put that sin from them, that His frown may
not rest upon them all. But if the sins of the people are passed over by
those in responsible positions, His frown will be upon them, and the
people of God, as a body, will be held responsible for those sins. In
His dealings with His people in the past the Lord shows the necessity
of purifying the church from wrongs. One sinner may diffuse darkness
that will exclude the light of God from the entire congregation. When
the people realize that darkness is settling upon them, and they do not
know the cause, they should seek God earnestly, in great humility and
self-abasement, until the wrongs which grieve His Spirit are searched
out and put away.
The prejudice which has arisen against us because we have re-
proved the wrongs that God has shown me existed, and the cry that has
been raised of harshness and severity, are unjust. God bids us speak,
and we will not be silent. If wrongs are apparent among His people,
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and if the servants of God pass on indifferent to them, they virtually
sustain and justify the sinner, and are alike guilty and will just as surely
receive the displeasure of God; for they will be made responsible for
the sins of the guilty. In vision I have been pointed to many instances
where the displeasure of God has been incurred by a neglect on the
part of His servants to deal with the wrongs and sins existing among
them. Those who have excused these wrongs have been thought by the
people to be very amiable and lovely in disposition, simply because
they shunned to discharge a plain Scriptural duty. The task was not
agreeable to their feelings; therefore they avoided it.
The spirit of hatred which has existed with some because the
wrongs among God’s people have been reproved has brought blindness
and a fearful deception upon their own souls, making it impossible for