Attitudes Toward the Testimonies
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many today pursuing a similar course. In the testimonies are specified
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the very sins of which they are guilty; hence they have no desire to
read them. There are those who from their youth up have received
warning and reproofs through the testimonies; but have they walked
in the light and reformed?—Not at all. They still indulge the same
sins; they have the same defects of character. These evils mar the
work of God, and make their impress upon the churches. The work
the Lord would do to set the churches in order is not done, because the
individual members-and especially the leaders of the flock—would
not be corrected.
Many a man professes to accept the testimonies, while they have
no influence upon his life or character. His faults become stronger
by indulgence until, having been often reproved and not heeding the
reproof, he loses the power of self-control, and becomes hardened in a
course of wrongdoing. If he is overworked, if weakness comes upon
him, he has not moral power to rise above the infirmities of character
which he did not overcome; they become his strongest points, and he is
overborne by them. Then bring him to the test and ask, “Did not God
reprove this phase in your character by the testimonies years ago?”
He will answer, “Yes, I received a written testimony saying that I was
wrong in these things.” “Why, then, did you not correct these wrong
habits?” “I thought the reprover must have made a mistake; that which
I could see, I accepted; that which I could not see, I said was the mind
of the one who gave the message. I did not accept the reproof.”
In some cases the very faults of character which God would have
His servants see and correct, but which they refuse to see, have cost
these men their life. They might have lived to be channels of light. God
wanted them to live, and sent them instruction in righteousness, that
they might preserve their physical and mental powers to do acceptable
service for Him; and had they received the counsel of God, and become
altogether such as He would have them, they would have been able
workmen for the advancement of the truth, men who would have stood
high in the affections and confidence of our people. But they are
sleeping in the grave, because they did not see that God knew them
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better than they knew themselves. His thoughts were not their thoughts,
nor His ways, their ways. These one-sided men have molded the work
wherever they have labored. The churches under their management
have been greatly weakened.