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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
If these persons do not humble their hearts before God, if they har-
bor the suggestions of Satan, doubt and infidelity will take possession
of the soul, and they will see everything in a false light. Let the seeds
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of doubt once be sown in their hearts and they will have an abundant
harvest to reap. They will come to mistrust and disbelieve truths which
are plain and full of beauty to others who have not educated themselves
in unbelief. Those who train the mind to seize upon everything which
they can use as a peg to hang a doubt upon, and suggest these thoughts
to other minds, will always find occasion to doubt. They will question
and criticize everything that arises in the unfolding of truth, criticize
the work and position of others, criticize every branch of the work
in which they have not themselves a part. They will feed upon the
errors and mistakes and faults of others, “until,” said the angel, “the
Lord Jesus shall rise up from His mediatorial work in the heavenly
sanctuary and shall clothe Himself with the garments of vengeance
and surprise them at their unholy feast, and they will find themselves
unprepared for the marriage supper of the Lamb.” Their taste has been
so perverted that they would be inclined to criticize even the table of
the Lord in His kingdom.
Has God ever revealed to these self-deceived ones that no reproofs
or corrections from Him are to have any weight with them unless
they come through direct vision? I dwell upon this point because the
position that many are now taking upon it is a delusion of Satan to
ruin souls. When he has ensnared and weakened them through his
sophistry, so that when they are reproved they persist in making of
none effect the workings of God’s Spirit, his triumph over them will
be complete. Some who profess righteousness will, like Judas, betray
their Lord into the hands of His bitterest enemies. These self-confident
ones, determined to have their own way and to advocate their own
ideas, will go on from bad to worse, until they will pursue any course
rather than to give up their own will. They will go on blindly in the
way of evil, but, like the deluded Pharisees, so self-deceived that they
think they are doing God’s service. Christ portrayed the course which
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a certain class will take when they have a chance to develop their true
character: “And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren,
and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put
to death.”