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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish
cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon Me, but I will not answer;
they shall seek Me early, but they shall not find me; for that they hated
knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord: they would none
of My counsel: they despised all My reproof. Therefore shall they eat
of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.”
Are you not halting between two opinions? Are you not neglecting
to heed the light which God has given you? Take heed lest there be
in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living
God. You know not the time of your visitation. The great sin of the
Jews was that of neglecting and rejecting present opportunities. As
Jesus views the state of His professed followers today, He sees base
ingratitude, hollow formalism, hypocritical insincerity, pharisaical
pride and apostasy.
The tears which Christ shed on the crest of Olivet were for the
impenitence and ingratitude of every individual to the close of time. He
sees His love despised. The soul’s temple courts have been converted
into places of unholy traffic. Selfishness, mammon, malice, envy,
pride, passion, are all cherished in the human heart. His warnings are
rejected and ridiculed, His ambassadors are treated with indifference,
their words seem as idle tales. Jesus has spoken by mercies, but
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these mercies have been unacknowledged; He has spoken by solemn
warnings, but these warnings have been rejected.
I entreat you who have long professed the faith and who still pay
outward homage to Christ: Do not deceive your own souls. It is the
whole heart that Jesus prizes. The loyalty of the soul is alone of value
in the sight of God. “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this
thy day, the things which belong to thy peace!” “Thou, ... even thou”—
Christ is at this moment addressing you personally, stooping from His
throne, yearning with pitying tenderness over those who feel not their
danger, who have no pity for themselves.
Many have a name to live while they have become spiritually
dead. These will one day say: “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied
in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy
name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto
them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.” Woe
will be pronounced against thee, if thou loiter and linger until the
Sun of Righteousness shall set; the blackness of eternal night will be