Opposition to Faithful Warnings
211
Our good works alone will not save any of us, but we cannot be
saved without good works. And after we have done all that we can do,
in the name and strength of Jesus we are to say: “We are unprofitable
servants.” We are not to think that we have made great sacrifices and
that we should receive great reward for our feeble services.
Self-righteousness and carnal security have closed you about as
with bands of iron. You need to be zealous and repent. You have
been unfortunate in sympathizing with the disaffected, whose course
has been in opposition to the work that the Lord through His servants
was doing upon this coast. The wrong men have had your sympathy.
Because your heart was not right with God, you did not receive the
light He sent to you. You set up your stubborn will to resist the reproof
which the Lord gave to you in love. You knew these things were true,
[229]
but tried to close your eyes to the true state of your case. Whether
you heed the voice of reproof and warning God has sent to you or not;
whether you reform, or retain your defects of character, you will one
day realize what you have lost by placing yourself in a defiant position,
warring in spirit against the servants of God. Your bitterness of feeling
toward Elder H is astonishing. He has endured and sacrificed and
toiled on this coast to do the work of God. But in your blindness, while
unconsecrated in heart and life, you have ventured, in connection with
I and J, to handle the servant of God in a cruel manner. “Touch not
Mine anointed,” saith God, “and do My prophets no harm.” It is not
a small matter for you to array yourself, as you have done, against
men whom God has sent with light and truth for the people. Beware
how your influence turns souls from the truth which God has sent His
servants to declare, for a heavy woe hangs over you.
Satan has been using you as his agent to insinuate doubts and to
reiterate insinuations and misrepresentations which have originated
in an unsanctified heart, which God would have cleansed from its
pollution. But you refused to be instructed, refused correction, rejected
reproof, and followed your own will and way. Souls are defiled by this
root of bitterness and are, through these questioning, murmuring ones,
placed where the testimony of reproof which God sends will not reach
them. The blood of these souls will be chargeable to you and to the
spirits with whom you are in harmony.
God has given us, as His servants, our work. He has given us a
message to bear to His people. For thirty years we have been receiving