Spiritual Revival
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natural heart is rejected. Men sow to the flesh and of the flesh reap
corruption.
With the setting aside of the Bible has come a turning away from
God’s law. The doctrine that men are released from obedience to
the divine precepts, has weakened the force of moral obligation and
opened the floodgates of iniquity upon the world. Lawlessness, dis-
sipation, and corruption are sweeping in like an overwhelming flood.
Everywhere are seen envy, evil surmising, hypocrisy, estrangement,
emulation, strife, betrayal of sacred trusts, indulgence of lust. The
whole system of religious principles and doctrines, which should form
the foundation and framework of social life, seems to be a tottering
mass, ready to fall in ruins.
In the last days of this earth’s history the voice that spoke from
Sinai is still declaring, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.”
Exodus 20:3
. Man has set his will against the will of God, but he cannot
silence the word of command. The human mind cannot evade its
obligation to a higher power. Theories and speculations may abound;
men may try to set science in opposition to revelation, and thus do away
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with God’s law; but stronger and still stronger comes the command,
“Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.”
Matthew 4:10
.
There is no such thing as weakening or strengthening the law of
Jehovah. As it has been, so it is. It always has been, and always will
be, holy, just, and good, complete in itself. It cannot be repealed or
changed. To “honor” or “dishonor” it is but the speech of men.
Between the laws of men and the precepts of Jehovah will come
the last great conflict of the controversy between truth and error. Upon
this battle we are now entering—a battle not between rival churches
contending for the supremacy, but between the religion of the Bible
and the religions of fable and tradition. The agencies which have
united against truth are now actively at work. God’s Holy Word,
which has been handed down to us at so great a cost of suffering and
bloodshed, is little valued. There are few who really accept it as the
rule of life. Infidelity prevails to an alarming extent, not in the world
only, but in the church. Many have come to deny doctrines which are
the very pillars of the Christian faith. The great facts of creation as
presented by the inspired writers, the fall of man, the atonement, the
perpetuity of the law—these all are practically rejected by a large share