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Testimonies for the Church Volume 4
Judah had burned in the fire: and there were added besides unto them
many like words.”
God does not send judgments upon His people without first warn-
ing them to repent. He uses every means to bring them back to obe-
dience and does not visit their iniquity with judgments until He has
given them ample opportunity to repent. The wrath of man sought
to prevent the labors of the prophet of God by depriving him of his
liberty; but God can speak to men through prison walls, and even
increase the usefulness of His servants through the very means by
which their persecutors seek to limit their influence.
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Many now despise the faithful reproof given of God in testimony.
I have been shown that some in these days have even gone so far as to
burn the written words of rebuke and warning, as did the wicked king
of Israel. But opposition to God’s threatenings will not hinder their
execution. To defy the words of the Lord, spoken through His chosen
instruments, will only provoke His anger and eventually bring certain
ruin upon the offender. Indignation often kindles in the heart of the
sinner against the agent whom God chooses to deliver His reproofs.
It has ever been thus, and the same spirit exists today that persecuted
and imprisoned Jeremiah for obeying the word of the Lord.
While men will not heed repeated warnings, they are pleased with
false teachers who flatter their vanity and strengthen their iniquity, but
who will fail to help them in the day of trouble. God’s chosen servants
should meet with courage and patience whatever trials and sufferings
befall them through reproach, neglect, or misrepresentations because
they faithfully discharge the duty that God has given them to do. They
should remember that the prophets of old and the Saviour of the world
also endured abuse and persecution for the word’s sake. They must
expect to meet just such opposition as was manifested by the burning
of the roll that was written by the dictation of God.
The Lord is fitting a people for heaven. The defects of character,
the stubborn will, the selfish idolatry, the indulgence of faultfinding,
hatred, and contention, provoke the wrath of God and must be put away
from His commandment-keeping people. Those living in these sins are
deceived and blinded by the wiles of Satan. They think that they are
in the light when they are groping in darkness. There are murmurers
among us now, even as there were murmurers among ancient Israel.
Those who by unwise sympathy encourage men in rebellion when