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God’s Care for His Church, June 12
Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and
offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid
them.
Romans 16:17
.
In all ages of the world there have been men who think they have a work to
do for the Lord, and show no respect for those whom the Lord has been using.
They do not make right applications of Scripture, they wrest the Scriptures to
sustain their own ideas. Whatever may be the claims of those who draw away
from the body to proclaim theories of their own invention, they are in Satan’s
service, to get up some new device to divert souls from the truth for this time.
Beware of those who arise with a great burden to denounce the church.
The chosen ones who are standing and breasting the storm of opposition from
the world, and are uplifting the downtrodden commandments of God to exalt
them as holy and honorable, are indeed the light of the world. How dare mortal
man pass his judgment upon them, and call the church a harlot, Babylon, a den
of thieves, a cage of every unclean and hateful bird, the habitation of devils,
making the nations drunk with the wine of her fornication, confederating with
the kings and great men of the earth, waxing rich through the abundance of
her delicacies, and proclaiming that her sins have reached unto heaven and
God hath remembered her iniquities? Is this the message we have to bear
to Seventh-day Adventists? I tell you, no! God has given no man any such
message. Let these men humble their hearts before God, and in true contrition
repent that they have even for a time stood by the side of the accuser of the
brethren who accused them before God day and night....
Supposing this spurious message is the one everyone must hear for this
time, “Come out of her, my people,” where shall we go? ...
I tell you, my brethren, the Lord has an organized body through whom He
will work. There may be more than a score of Judases among them; there may
be a rash Peter who will under circumstances of trial deny his Lord; there may
be persons represented by John, whom Jesus loved, but he may have a zeal
that would destroy men’s lives by calling down fire from heaven upon them
to revenge an insult to Christ and to the truth. But the great Teacher seeks to
give lessons of instruction to correct these existing evils.—
Manuscript 21,
June 12, 1893,
.
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