Rebellion
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We must let it be known that we have no such ones in our fellowship,
that we will not walk with them in church capacity.
“You have lost the sanctifying influence of the truth. You have lost
your connection with the heavenly host. You have allied yourself with
the first great rebel, and God’s wrath is upon you; for His sacred cause
is reproached, and the truth is made disgusting to unbelievers. You
have grieved God’s people, and despised the counsel of His ambas-
sadors upon earth, who labor together with Him, and are in Christ’s
stead beseeching souls to be reconciled to God.
“I was shown that as a people we cannot be too careful what
influence we exert; we should watch every word. When we by word
or act place ourselves upon the enemy’s battle ground, we drive holy
angels from us, and encourage and attract evil angels in crowds around
us. This you have done, Brother A, and by your unguarded, willful
course have caused unbelievers to look upon Sabbathkeepers all around
you with suspicion. These words were presented before me as referring
to the servants of God: ‘He that heareth you heareth Me; and he that
despiseth you despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me despiseth Him
that sent Me.’ May God help you, my deceived brother, to see yourself
as you are, and to have your sympathies with the body.”
Our kingdom is not of this world. We are waiting for our Lord
from heaven to come to earth to put down all authority and power,
and set up His everlasting kingdom. Earthly powers are shaken. We
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need not, and cannot, expect union among the nations of the earth.
Our position in the image of Nebuchadnezzar is represented by the
toes, in a divided state, and of a crumbling material, that will not hold
together. Prophecy shows us that the great day of God is right upon
us. It hasteth greatly.
I saw that it is our duty in every case to obey the laws of our land,
unless they conflict with the higher law which God spoke with an
audible voice from Sinai, and afterward engraved on stone with His
own finger. “I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their
hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people.”
He who has God’s law written in the heart will obey God rather than
men, and will sooner disobey all men than deviate in the least from
the commandment of God. God’s people, taught by the inspiration of
truth, and led by a good conscience to live by every word of God, will
take His law, written in their hearts, as the only authority which they