Individual Independence
377
that when you labor in God, putting self out of sight, you will realize
a strength from Him which will give you access to hearts. Angels of
God will work with your efforts when you are humble and little in
your own eyes. But when you think you know more than those whom
God has been leading for years, and whom He has been instructing in
the truth and fitting for the extension of His work, you are self-exalted
and will fall into temptations.
You need to cultivate kindness and tenderness. You need to be
pitiful and courteous. Your labors savor too much of severity and an
exacting, dictatorial, overbearing spirit. You are not always kindly
considerate of the feelings of others, and you create trials and dis-
satisfaction needlessly. More love in your labors, and more kindly
sympathy, would give you access to hearts and would win souls to
Christ and the truth.
You are constantly inclined to individual independence. You do not
realize that independence is a poor thing when it leads you to have too
much confidence in yourself and to trust to your own judgment rather
than to respect the counsel and highly estimate the judgment of your
brethren, especially of those in the offices which God has appointed
for the saving of His people. God has invested His church with special
authority and power which no one can be justified in disregarding and
despising, for in so doing he despises the voice of God.
[418]
It is not safe for you to trust to impressions and feelings. It has
been your misfortune to come under the power of that satanic delusion,
spiritualism. This pall of death has covered you, and your imagination
and nerves have been under the control of demons; and when you
become self-confident and do not cling with unwavering confidence to
God you are in positive danger. You may, and frequently do, let down
the bars and invite the enemy in, and he controls your thoughts and
actions, while you are really deceived and flatter yourself that you are
in favor with God.
Satan has tried to prevent you from having confidence in your
American brethren. You have regarded them and their moves and
experience with suspicion, when they are the very ones who could
help you and would be a blessing to you. It will be Satan’s studied
effort to separate you from those who are as channels of light, through
whom God has communicated His will and through whom He has
wrought in building up and extending His work. Your views and your