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Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers
righteousness in the church, moved by a power from the throne of
God, the great controversy will wax stronger and stronger, and will
become more and more determined. Mind will be arrayed against
mind, plans against plans, principles of heavenly origin against
principles of Satan. Truth in its varied phases will be in conflict with
error in its ever-varying, increasing forms, and which, if possible,
will deceive the very elect.
Our work must be an earnest one. We are not to fight as those
that beat the air. The ministry, the pulpit, and the press demand
men like Caleb, who will do and dare, men whose eyes are single to
detect the truth from error, whose ears are consecrated to catch the
words from the faithful Watcher. And the Spirit from the throne of
God will make itself felt upon a degenerate Christianity, a corrupt
world, ready to be consumed by the long-deferred judgments of an
offended God.
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Hatred of Reproof
There is danger now of men’s losing sight of the important truths
applicable for this period of time, and seeking for those things that
are new and strange and entrancing. Many, if reproved by the Spirit
of God through His appointed agencies, refuse to receive correction,
and a root of bitterness is planted in their hearts against the Lord’s
servants who carry heavy, disagreeable burdens. There are men
who teach the truth, but who are not perfecting their ways before
God, who are trying to conceal their defections and encourage an
estrangement from God. They have not the moral courage to do the
things that it is for their special benefit to do. They see no necessity
for reform, and so they reject the words of the Lord and hate him
who reproveth at the gate.
This very refusal to heed the admonitions which the Lord sends
gives Satan every advantage to make of them the bitterest enemies
of those who have told them the truth. They become falsifiers of
those who have borne to them the message from the Lord.
The man who rejects the word of the Lord, who endeavors to
establish his own way and will, tears to pieces the messenger and
message which God sends in order to discover to him his sin. His
own inclinations have influenced his conduct, and he has built him-