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Testimonies for the Church Volume 1
light which God has seen fit to communicate in His own chosen way,
is recorded.
I was shown still another woman who is not in union with the
people whom God is leading out. The spirit of truth dwells not in
her heart, and she has been busy doing the work which well pleases
the enemy of all good, to distract and confuse minds. (I recognized
this woman the last day of the meeting; she left before it closed.) She
is a great talker, and is ever ready to hear and tell some new thing,
dwelling upon what she calls others’ wrongs; and she terms her evil
surmisings discernment. She puts light for darkness, and darkness for
light, and for a pretense makes long prayers. She loves to be approved
and thought righteous, and has deceived some. She wishes to teach
others, and thinks that God teaches her above others. But the truth has
no place in her heart.
A few others were shown me as joining their influence with those
I have mentioned, and together they do what they can to draw off from
the body and cause confusion; and their influence brings the truth of
God into disrepute. Jesus and holy angels are bringing up and uniting
God’s people into one faith, that they may all have one mind and one
judgment. And while they are being brought into the unity of the faith,
to see eye to eye upon the solemn, important truths for this time, Satan
is at work to oppose their advancement. Jesus is at work through His
instruments to gather and unite. Satan works through his instruments
to scatter and divide. “For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house
of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall
not the least grain fall upon the earth.”
God is now testing and proving His people. Character is being
developed. Angels are weighing moral worth, and keeping a faithful
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record of all the acts of the children of men. Among God’s professed
people are corrupt hearts; but they will be tested and proved. That God
who reads the hearts of everyone, will bring to light hidden things of
darkness where they are often least suspected, that stumbling blocks
which have hindered the progress of truth may be removed, and God
have a clean and holy people to declare His statutes and judgments.
The Captain of our salvation leads His people on step by step,
purifying and fitting them for translation, and leaving in the rear those
who are disposed to draw off from the body, who are not willing to
be led, and are satisfied with their own righteousness. “If therefore