Adulterer and Church Membership
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sufficient to remove the ark of God from the camp, if there were no
other sins to cause the ark to be taken away and weaken Israel.
Suspension From the Church for Adulterers—Those who
break the seventh commandment should be suspended from the church,
and not have its fellowship nor the privileges of the house of God. Said
the angel, “This is not a sin of ignorance. It is a knowing sin and will
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receive the awful visitation of God, whether he who commits it be old
or young.”
High-handed, Deliberate Sinning—Never was this sin regarded
by God as being so exceedingly sinful as at the present time. Why?
Because God is purifying unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of
good works. It is at the very time when God is purifying this peculiar
people unto Himself that [unsanctified] individuals step in among us.
Notwithstanding the straight truths they have heard—the terrors of
the Word of God set before them, and all the blazing truth for these
last days calculated to arouse Israel—they sin with a high hand, give
way to all the loose passions of the carnal heart, gratify their animal
propensities, disgrace the cause of God, and then confess they have
sinned and are sorry!
And the church receives them and says “Amen” to their prayers and
exhortations, which are a stink in the nostrils of God, and cause His
wrath to come upon the camp. He will not dwell in their assemblies.
Those who move on thus heedlessly, plastering over these sins, will be
left to their own ways, to be filled with their own doings.
Those who anciently committed these sins were taken without the
camp and stoned to death. Temporal and eternal death was their doom;
and because the penalty of stoning to death is abolished, this sin is
indulged in beyond measure and is thought to be a small offense.—
Manuscript 3, 1854
.
No Help for This Man [
The White Estate has no firm documen-
tation on the nature of E’s transgression, but Arthur L. White recalls
hearing his father, W. C. White, refer to it as a particularly revolt-
ing case of incest.
]—It is impossible for E to be fellowshiped by the
church of God. He has placed himself where he cannot be helped by
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the church, where he can have no communion with, nor voice in, the
church. He has placed himself there in the face of light and truth. He
has stubbornly chosen his own course, and refused to listen to reproof.