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The Desire of Ages
evidence that He read the heart as an open book, they told Him of
the effect of His words. Hoping that He might conciliate the enraged
officials, they said to Jesus, “Knowest Thou that the Pharisees were
offended, after they heard this saying?”
He answered, “Every plant, which My heavenly Father hath not
planted, shall be rooted up.” The customs and traditions so highly
valued by the rabbis were of this world, not from heaven. However
great their authority with the people, they could not endure the testing
of God. Every human invention that has been substituted for the
commandments of God will be found worthless in that day when “God
shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether
it be good, or whether it be evil.”
Ecclesiastes 12:14
.
The substitution of the precepts of men for the commandments of
God has not ceased. Even among Christians are found institutions and
usages that have no better foundation than the traditions of the fathers.
Such institutions, resting upon mere human authority, have supplanted
those of divine appointment. Men cling to their traditions, and revere
their customs, and cherish hatred against those who seek to show them
their error. In this day, when we are bidden to call attention to the
commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, we see the same enmity
as was manifested in the days of Christ. Of the remnant people of God
it is written, “The dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make
war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of
God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
Revelation 12:17
.
But “every plant, which My heavenly Father hath not planted, shall
be rooted up.” In place of the authority of the so-called fathers of the
church, God bids us accept the word of the eternal Father, the Lord of
heaven and earth. Here alone is truth unmixed with error. David said,
“I have more understanding than all my teachers: for Thy testimonies
are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I
keep Thy precepts.”
Psalm 119:99, 100
. Let all who accept human
authority, the customs of the church, or the traditions of the fathers,
take heed to the warning conveyed in the words of Christ, “In vain they
do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”
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