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A New Life (Revival and Beyond)
fully clothed, this theory is a most dangerous deception. It misrep-
resents God and is a dishonor to His greatness and majesty. And it
surely tends not only to mislead, but to debase men. Darkness is its
element, sensuality its sphere.... These theories, followed to their
logical conclusion, sweep away the whole Christian economy. They
do away with the necessity for the atonement and make man his own
savior. [
The Ministry of Healing, 428, 429
.]
I have seen the results of these fanciful views of God, in apostasy,
spiritualism, and free-lovism. The free love tendency of these teach-
ings was so concealed that at first it was difficult to make plain its real
character. Until the Lord presented it to me, I knew not what to call it,
but I was instructed to call it unholy spiritual love. [
Testimonies for
the Church 8:292
.]
As in the days of the apostles men tried by tradition and philosophy
to destroy faith in the Scriptures, so today, by the pleasing sentiments
[54]
of higher criticism, evolution, spiritualism, theosophy, and pantheism,
the enemy of righteousness is seeking to lead souls into forbidden
paths.... By spiritualism, multitudes are taught to believe that desire
is the highest law, that license is liberty, and that man is accountable
only to himself. [
The Acts of the Apostles, 474
.]
Irrational Behavior
Sanctification is not a happy flight of feeling, not the work of an
instant, but the work of a lifetime. If any one claims that the Lord
has sanctified him, and made him holy, the proof of his claim to the
blessing will be seen in the fruits of meekness, patience, long-suffering,
truthfulness, and love.
If the blessing that those who claim to be sanctified have received,
leads them to rely upon some particular emotion, and they declare
there is no need of searching the Scriptures that they may know God’s
revealed will, then the supposed blessing is a counterfeit, for it leads
its possessors to place value on their own unsanctified emotions and
fancies, and to close their ears to the voice of God in His word....
Nervous excitement in religious matters is no evidence that the
Spirit of God is working upon the heart. We read of frenzied contor-
tions of the body, of shrieking and screaming in the work of Satan
upon the minds and bodies of men; but the word of God affords us