Page 312 - The Faith I Live By (1958)

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Prove All Things, October 17
Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesyings. Prove all things;
hold fast that which is good.
1 Thessalonians 5:19-21
.
“In ancient times God spoke to men by the mouth of prophets and
apostles. In these days He speaks to them by the testimonies of His
Spirit. There was never a time when God instructed His people more
earnestly than He instructs them now concerning His will and the course
that He would have them pursue.”
The instruction that was given in the early days of the message is to
be held as safe instruction to follow in these its closing days.
Let the
Testimonies
be judged by their fruits. What is the spirit
of their teaching? What has been the result of their influence? “All
who desire to do so can acquaint themselves with the fruits of these
visions....”
“This work is of God, or it is not. God does nothing in partnership
with Satan. My work ... bears the stamp of God or the stamp of the
enemy. There is no halfway work in the matter. The
Testimonies
are of
the Spirit of God, or of the devil.”
The very last deception of Satan will be to make of none effect the
testimony of the Spirit of God. “Where there is no vision, the people
perish.”
Proverbs 29:18
. Satan will work ingeniously, in different ways
and through different agencies, to unsettle the confidence of God’s
remnant people in the true testimony. He will bring in spurious visions,
to mislead and mingle the false with the true, and so disgust people that
they will regard everything that bears the name of visions, as a species
of fanaticism; but honest souls, by contrasting false and true, will be
enabled to distinguish between them.
“When the
Testimonies,
which were once believed, are doubted and
given up, Satan knows the deceived ones will not stop at this; and he
redoubles his efforts till he launches them into open rebellion, which
becomes incurable and ends in destruction.
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