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will be left to embrace errors which will finally cause their overthrow;
but they will for a time be stumbling blocks to those who would
receive the truth. Ministers who labor in word and doctrine should
be thorough workmen, and should present the truth in its purity, yet
with simplicity. They should feed the flock with clean provender,
thoroughly winnowed. There are wandering stars professing to be
ministers sent of God who are preaching the Sabbath from place to
place, but who have truth mixed up with error and are throwing out
their mass of discordant views to the people. Satan has pushed them
in to disgust intelligent and sensible unbelievers. Some of these have
much to say upon the gifts and are often especially exercised. They
give themselves up to wild, excitable feelings and make unintelligible
sounds which they call the gift of tongues, and a certain class seem to
be charmed with these strange manifestations. A strange spirit rules
with this class, which would bear down and run over anyone who
would reprove them. God’s Spirit is not in the work and does not
attend such workmen. They have another spirit. Still, such preachers
have success among a certain class. But this will greatly increase the
labor of those servants whom God shall send, who are qualified to
present before the people the Sabbath and the gifts in their proper light,
and whose influence and example are worthy of imitation.
The truth should be presented in a manner which will make it
attractive to the intelligent mind. We are not understood as a people,
but are looked upon as poor, weak-minded, low, and degraded. Then
how important for all who teach, and all who believe the truth, to be so
affected by its sanctifying influence that their consistent, elevated lives
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shall show unbelievers that they have been deceived in this people.
How important that the cause of truth be stripped of everything like a
false and fanatical excitement, that the truth may stand upon its own
merits, revealing its native purity and exalted character.
I saw that it is highly important for those who preach the truth to
be refined in their manners, to shun oddities and eccentricities, and
present the truth in its purity and clearness. I was referred to
Titus
1:9
: “Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he
may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the
gainsayers.” In
verse 16
Paul speaks of a class who profess that they
know God, but in works deny him, being “unto every good work
reprobate.” He then exhorts Titus: “But speak thou the things which