“Cannot Come Down”
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those who keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus.
This class feel that it is a virtue to talk, write, and act out the most bitter
hatred against us. We need not look for fair dealing or for justice at
their hands. Many of them are inspired by Satan with insane madness
against those who are keeping the commandments of God. We shall
be maligned and misrepresented; all our motives and actions will be
misjudged, and our characters will be attacked. The wrath of the
dragon will be manifested in this manner. But I saw that we should
not be in the least discouraged. Our strength is in Jesus, our Advocate.
If in humility we trust in God and hold fast to His promises, He will
give us grace and heavenly wisdom to withstand all the wiles of Satan
and to come off victors.
In my recent view I saw that it will not increase our influence, or
bring us into favor with God, to retaliate or come down from our great
work to their level in meeting their slanders. There are those who will
resort to any species of deception and gross falsehood to gain their
object and deceive souls, and to cast stigma upon the law of God and
those who love to obey it. They will repeat the most inconsistent and
vile falsehoods, over and over, until they make themselves believe that
they are truth. These are the strongest arguments they have to use
against the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. We should not allow
our feelings to control us and divert us from the work of warning the
world.
The case of Nehemiah was presented before me. He was engaged
in building the walls of Jerusalem, and the enemies of God were
determined that the walls should not be built. “But it came to pass, that
when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites,
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and the Ashdodites, heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made
up, and that the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very
wroth, and conspired all of them together to come and to fight against
Jerusalem, and to hinder it.”
In this case a spirit of hatred and opposition to the Hebrews formed
the bond of union and created a mutual sympathy among different
bodies of men who might otherwise have warred with one another.
This well illustrates what we frequently witness in our day in the
existing union of men of different denominations to oppose present
truth, men whose only bond seems to be that which is dragonic in
its nature, manifesting bitterness and hatred against the remnant who