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Faithful, Earnest Warnings
69
word. God impressed His servants to speak the truth irrespective of
what men had taken for granted as truth.
Present Dangers
Even Seventh-day Adventists are in danger of closing their eyes
to truth as it is in Jesus, because it contradicts something which they
have taken for granted as truth but which the Holy Spirit teaches
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is not truth. Let all be very modest, and seek most earnestly to put
self out of the question, and to exalt Jesus. In most of the religious
controversies the foundation of the trouble is that self is striving
for the supremacy. About what? About matters which are not vital
points at all, and which are regarded as such only because men have
given importance to them. (See
Matthew 12:31-37
;
Mark 14:56
;
Luke 5:21
;
Matthew 9:3
.)
But let us follow the history of the men whom the Jewish priests
and rulers thought so dangerous, because they were bringing in
new and strange teaching on almost every theological subject. The
command given by the Holy Spirit, “Go, stand and speak in the
temple to the people all the words of this life,” was obeyed by the
apostles; “they entered into the temple early in the morning, and
taught. But the high priest came, and they that were with him, and
called the council together, and all the senate of the children of
Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought. But when the
officers came, and found them not in the prison, they returned, and
told, saying, The prison truly found we shut with all safety, and the
keepers standing without before the doors: but when we had opened,
we found no man within. Now when the high priest and the captain
of the temple and the chief priests heard these things, they doubted
of them whereunto this would grow. Then came one and told them,
saying Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the
temple, and teaching the people. Then went the captain with the
officers, and brought them without violence: for they feared the
people, lest they should have been stoned.” If the priests and rulers
had dared act out their own feelings toward the apostles, there would
have been a different record; for the angel of God was a watcher on
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that occasion, to magnify His name if any violence had been offered
to His servants.