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Chapter 13—Object of Personal Testimonies
Dear Brethren and Sisters,
The Lord has again manifested Himself to me. June 12, 1868,
while speaking to the brethren in the house of worship at Battle
Creek, Michigan, the Spirit of God came upon me, and in an instant
I was in vision. The view was extensive. I had commenced to write
the fifth volume of
Spiritual Gifts
; but as I had testimonies of a
practical nature which you should have immediately, I left that work
to prepare this little pamphlet.
In this last vision I was shown that which fully justifies my
course in publishing personal testimonies. When the Lord singles
out individual cases and specifies their wrongs, others, who have
not been shown in vision, frequently take it for granted that they are
right, or nearly so. If one is reproved for a special wrong, brethren
and sisters should carefully examine themselves to see wherein they
have failed and wherein they have been guilty of the same sin. They
should possess the spirit of humble confession. If others think them
right, it does not make them so. God looks at the heart. He is proving
and testing souls in this manner. In rebuking the wrongs of one,
He designs to correct many. But if they fail to take the reproof to
themselves, and flatter themselves that God passes over their errors
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because He does not especially single them out, they deceive their
own souls and will be shut up in darkness and be left to their own
ways to follow the imagination of their own hearts.
Many are dealing falsely with their own souls and are in a great
deception in regard to their true condition before God. He employs
ways and means to best serve His purpose and to prove what is in
the hearts of His professed followers. He makes plain the wrongs
of some that others may thus be warned, and fear, and shun those
errors. By self-examination they may find that they are doing the
same things which God condemns in others. If they really desire
to serve God, and fear to offend Him, they will not wait for their
sins to be specified before they make confession and with humble
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