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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
are left in darkness and are ensnared and taken by the adversary.
The minister of God is commanded: “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up
thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and
the house of Jacob their sins.” The Lord says of these people: “They
seek Me daily, and delight to know My ways, as a nation that did
righteousness.” Here is a people who are self-deceived, self-righteous,
self-complacent, and the minister is commanded to cry aloud and show
them their transgressions. In all ages this work has been done for God’s
people, and it is needed now more than ever before.
The word of the Lord came to Elijah; he did not seek to be the
Lord’s messenger, but the word came to him. God always has men to
whom He entrusts His message. His Spirit moves upon their hearts
and constrains them to speak. Stimulated by holy zeal, and with the
divine impulse strong upon them, they enter upon the performance of
their duty without coldly calculating the consequences of speaking to
the people the word which the Lord has given them. But the servant of
God is soon made aware that he has risked something. He finds himself
and his message made the subject of criticism. His manners, his life,
his property, are all inspected and commented upon. His message is
picked to pieces and rejected in the most illiberal and unsanctified
spirit, as men in their finite judgment see fit. Has that message done
the work that God designed it should accomplish? No; it has signally
failed because the hearts of the hearers were unsanctified.
If the minister’s face is not flint, if he has not indomitable faith and
courage, if his heart is not made strong by constant communion with
God, he will begin to shape his testimony to please the unsanctified
ears and hearts of those he is addressing. In endeavoring to avoid the
criticism to which he is exposed, he separates from God and loses the
sense of divine favor, and his testimony becomes tame and lifeless.
He finds that his courage and faith are gone and his labors powerless.
The world is full of flatterers and dissemblers who have yielded to the
desire to please; but the faithful men, who do not study self-interest,
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but love their brethren too well to suffer sin upon them, are few indeed.
It is Satan’s settled purpose to cut off all communication between
God and His people, that he may practice his deceptive wiles with no
voice to warn them of their danger. If he can lead men to distrust the
messenger or to attach no sacredness to the message, he knows that