Five Letters to Members of the Wessels Family in South Africa
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the transgressor. In proportion as the attributes of Satan are developed
in the despisers and transgressors of the law of God, to the faithful
adherent the holy precept will become more dear and valuable. He
will declare, “They have made void thy law. Therefore I love thy
commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold.” It is the ones who
have been faithful stewards of the grace of God whose love of God’s
commandments grows with the contempt which all around them would
put upon them.
Wicked men and the church harmonize in this hatred of the law
of God, and then the crisis comes. Then we see the class specified
in
Malachi 3:13-15
: “Your words have been stout against me, saith
the Lord. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee? Ye
have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have
kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the
Lord of hosts? And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work
wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.”
Here are a company of disaffected professed Christians, whose chief
business is to murmur and complain and accuse God by accusing the
children of God. They see nothing defective in themselves, but very
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much to displease in others.
But while they are murmuring and complaining and falsely accus-
ing, and doing Satan’s work most zealously, another class is brought to
our notice: “Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another:
and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance
was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought
upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in
that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man
spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return, and discern
between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God
and him that serveth him not.”
This subject is urging itself upon my mind. I want you to consider
it, for it is a matter of vast importance. With which of these two classes
shall we identify our interest? We are now making our choice, and
we shall soon discern between him that serveth God, and him that
serveth Him not. Read the fourth chapter of Malachi, and think about
it seriously. The day of God is right upon us. The world has converted
the church. Both are in harmony, and are acting on a short-sighted
policy. Protestants will work upon the rulers of the land to make