Basic HTML Version
No disorder or Fanaticism, November 17
Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be
able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.
Titus 1:9
.
There is constant danger of allowing something to come into our midst
that we may regard as the workings of the Holy Spirit, but that in reality is
the fruit of a spirit of fanaticism. So long as we allow the enemy of truth to
lead us into a wrong way, we cannot hope to reach the honest in heart with
the third angel’s message. We are to be sanctified through obedience to the
truth. I am afraid of anything that would have a tendency to turn the mind
away from the solid evidences of the truth as revealed in God’s Word. I am
afraid of it; I am afraid of it.
We must bring our minds within the bounds of reason, lest the enemy
so come in as to set everything in a disorderly way. There are persons of
an excitable temperament who are easily led into fanaticism; and should we
allow anything to come into our churches that would lead such persons into
error, we would soon see these errors carried to extreme lengths, and then
because of the course of these disorderly elements, a stigma would rest upon
the whole body of Seventh-day Adventists.
I have been studying how to get some of these early experiences into print
again, so that more of our people may be informed, for I have long known that
fanaticism will be manifest again, in different ways. We are to strengthen our
position by dwelling on the Word, and by avoiding all oddities and strange
exercisings that some would be very quick to catch up and practice. If we
were to allow confusion to come into our ranks, we could not bind off our
work as we should....
How afraid I am to have anything of a fanatical nature brought in among
our people. There are many, many who must be sanctified, but they are to be
sanctified through obedience to the message of truth.—
Selected Messages
2:43, 44
.
[331]
342