Qualifications for a Church Militant

"Christ has plainly taught that those who persist in open sin must be separated from the church..." Christ's Object Lessons, 71.

If those who persist in open sin are retained in any church militant, it ceases to be a church militant and becomes a sister to fallen Babylon.

"We must as a people arouse and cleanse the camp of Israel. Licentiousness, unlawful intimacy, and unholy practices are coming in among us in a large degree...We are in danger of becoming a sister to fallen Babylon, of allowing our churches to become corrupted and filled with every foul spirit, a cage for every unclean and hateful bird, and will we be clear unless we make decided movements to cure the existing evil? E. G. White, Manuscript Releases No. 449, pp. 17, 18.

"The Lord Jesus will always have a chosen people to serve Him. When the Jewish people rejected Christ, the Prince of life, He took from them the kingdom of God and gave it unto the Gentiles. God will continue to work on this principle with every branch of His work. When a churchproves unfaithful to the work of the Lord, whatever their position may be, however high and sacred their calling, the Lord can no longer work with them. Others are then chosen to bear important responsibilities. But, if these in turn do not purify their lives from every wrong action, if they do not estalish ure and holy rinciples in all their borders, then the Lord will grievously afflict and humble them and, unless they repent, will remove them from their place and make them a reproach.
God is not 'worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing' (Acts 17:25). E. G. White, The Upward Look, 131.

"The Sanhedrin had rejected Christ's message and was bent upon His death; therefore Jesus departed from Jerusalem, from the priests, the temple, the religious leaders, the people who had been instructed in the law, and turned to another class to proclaim His message, and to gather out those hwo should carry the gospel to all nations.
As the light and life of men was rejected by the ecclesiastical authorities in the days of Christ, so it has been rejected in every succeedng generation. Again and again the history of Christ's withdrawal from Judea has been repeated. When the Reformers preached the word of God, they had no thought of separating themselves from the established church; but the religious leaders would not tolerate the light, and those that bore it were forced to seek another class, who were longing for the truth. In our day few of the professed followers of the Reformers are actuated by their spirit. Few are listening for the voice of God, and ready to accept truth in whatever guise it may be presented. Often those who follow in the steps of the Reformers are forced to turn away from the churches they love, in order to declare the plain teaching of the word of God. And many times those hwo are seeking for light are by the same teaching obliged to leave the church of their fathers, that they may render obedience." E.G. White, Desire of Ages, 232.

"We must as a people arouse and cleanse the camp of Israel. Licentiousness, unlawful intimacy, and unholy practices are coming in among us in a large degree...We are in danger of becoming a sister to fallen Babylon, of allowing our churches to become corrupted and filled with every foul spirit, a cage for every unclean and hateful bird, and will we be clear unless we make decided movements to cure the existing evil? E. G. White, Manuscript Releases No. 449, pp. 17, 18.

"If we turn from the testimony of God's word, and accept false doctrines [Calvinism] because our fathers taught them, we fall under the condemnation pronounced upon Babylon; we are drinking of the wine of her abominations." E. G White, The 1884 Great Controversy entitled Spirit of Prophecy, Vol. 4, 347, not to be confused with Testimonies, Vol. 4. The four volume Spirit of Prophecy series, can still be special ordered through any Adventist Book Store.

"If we turn from the testimony of God's word, and accept false doctrines [Calvinism] because our fathers taught them, we fall under the condemnation pronounced upon Babylon; we are drinking of the wine of her abominations." E. G Wite, The 1884 Great Controversy entitled Spirit of Prophecy, Vol. 4, 347, not to be confused with Testimonies, Vol. 4. The four volume Spirit of Prophecy series, can still be special ordered through any Adventist Book Store.

"It is now the duty of God's commandment--keeping people to watch and pray, to search the Scriptures diligently, to hide the Word of God in the heart, lest they sin against Him in idolatrous thoughts and debasing practices, and thu the church of God become demoralized like the falln churches whom prophecy represents as being filled with every unclean and hateful bird." E. G. White, Review and Herald, May 17, 1887.

"In the balances of the sanctuary the Seventh-day Adventist chrch is to be weighed. She will be judged by the privileges and advantages that she has had. . . .I saw our Instructor pointing to the garments of so-called rightousness. Stripping them of, He laid bare he defilement beneath. Then He said to me: 'Can you not see how they have retentiously covered up their defilement and rotteness of character? How is the faithful city become an harlot?" E. G. White, Testimonies, Vol. 8, pp. 247-250.

"Thorns sprung up.--The thorns made it impossible for the wheat to mature (see Luke 8:4). In the same way secular interests prevent the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22, 23) from reaching maturity. Religion is relegated to the subordinate position of being only one interest among many. For lack of cultivation it withers and eventually dies. That which the thorny-ground hearers lack is a moral transformation (Christ's Object Lessons, p. 50). To them, justification is the sum and substance of religion, and they fail to realize that the Christian life consists essentially in the proces known as sanctification--the process by which evil traits and tendencies are replaced by the perfect life-pattern of Jesus Christ." SDA Bible Commentary, Vol. 5, 405.

"It is IMPOSSIBLE for you to unite with those who are corrupt, and still remain pure. (II Corinthians 6:14-15 quoted). God and Christ and the heavenly host would have men know that if he unites with the ocrrupt he will become corrupt." E. G. White, Review and Herald, Vol. 4, p. 137.

"The thorns of sin will grow in any soil/ they need no cultivaiton; but grace must be carefully cultivated. The briers and thorns are always ready to sprin up, and the work of purificaiton must advance continually....
The thorns that have been cut off but not uprooted grow space, until the soul [and/or the church] is overspread with them." E. G. White, Christ's Object Lessons, 50.

Quiescent, insincere believer tares, are not to be uprooted until the close of probationary time, Christ's Object Lessons, 72. Open sinning tares and thorns are to be uprooted, o the church will be overspread with them and they will choke out and kill the wheat, making it impossible for the wheat to mature. This is why the wheat must be separated from a church that is controlled by open sinning, apostate tares and thorns.

"But the doctrine is now largely taught that the Gospel of Christ has made the law of God of no effect; that by 'believing' we are released from the necessity of being doers of the word. But this is the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which Christ so unsparingly condemned.... Those who are teaching this doctirne toda have much to say in regard to faith and the righteousness of Christ; but they pervert the truth, and make it serve the cause of error. They declare that we have only to believe on Jesus Christ, and that faith is all-sufficient; that the righteousness of Christ is to be the sinners credentials; that this imputed righteousness fulfils the law for us, and that we are under no obligation to obey the law of God. This class claim tat Christ came to save sinners, and that he has saved them. "I am saved,' they will repeat over and over again. But are they saved while transgressing the law of Jehovah?--No; for the garments of Christ's righteousness are not a cloak for iniquity: Such teaching is a gross deception, and Christ becomes to these persons a stumbling-block as he did to the Jews,--to the Jews because hey would not receive him as their personal Saviour; to these rofessed believers in Christ, because they separate Christ and the Law, and regard faith as a substitute for obedience. They separate the Father and the Son, the Saviour of the world. Virtually they teach, both by precept and example, that Christ, by his death, saves men in their transgressions." E. G. White, The Signs of the Times, Vol. 3, 363, col. 1.

"Christ has plainly taught that those who persist in open sin must be separated from the church..." Christ's Object Lessons, 71.

Thorns--Nicolaitans to be Separated From the Church--"It is our work to know our special failings and sins, which cause darkness and spiritual feebleness, and quenched our first love. Is it worldliness? Is i selfishness? Is it the love of self-esteem? Is it striving to be first? Is it the sin of sensuality that is intensely active? Is it the sin of the Nicolaitans, turning the grace of god into lasciviousness? Is it the misuse and abuse of great light and opportunities and privileges, marking boasted claims to wisdom and religious knowledge, while te life and character are inconsistent and immoral? Whatever it is that has been petted and cultivated until it has become strong and overmastering, make determined efforts to overcome, else you will e lost. It is these cherished sins, abhorrent to God, that make enfeebled moral courage, and leave you to choose to walk apart from God, while you retain a miserable, heartless, outward form. Once the soul was all aglow with the love for Jesus; but all this is changed. The great Head who moves in the midst of his candlesticks will never be without a church. There will be taithless ones who will go out from us because they were not of us. There will be apostasies. But 'nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his.' There will be those who are evil, who hold the truth in unrighteousness, who are sensual, who are controlled by the master-worker in all evil, who will have to be separated from the church."...
This labor of purifying the church is a painful work, but one that must not be neglected, if the church would have the commendation of God." E. G. White, Review and Herald Articles, 06-07-1887, paragraph 16.

"Any connection with infidels and UNBELIEVERS which would identify us with them is FORBIDDEN by the word. We are to come out from them and be separate. in no case are we to link ourselves with them in their plans or work." E. G. White, Fundamentals of Christian Education, 482.

"We must AS A PEOPLE arouse and cleanse the camp of Israel. Licentiousness, unlawful intimacy, and unholy practices are coming in among us in a large degree....We are in danger of becoming a sister to fallen Babylon, of allowing our churches to become corrupted and filled with every foul spirit, a cage for every unclean and hateful bird, and will we be clear unless we make decided movements to cure the existing evil? E. G. White, Manuscript Release No. 449, pp. 17, 18.

"It is now the duty of God's commandment-keeping people to watch and pray, to search the Scriptures diligently, to hide the word of god in the heart, lest they sin against Him in idolatrous thoughts and debasing practices, and thus the church of God become demoralized like the fallen churches whom prophecy represents as being filled with every unclean and hateful bird." E. G. White, Review and Herald, May 17, 1887; also found in Testimonies on Sexual Behavior, Adultery, and Divorce, 188.

"The world must not be introduced into the church and married to the church. Through union with the world the church will become corrupt,--'a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." E. G. White, Review and Herald, 02-26-1895, pr. 4.

"Worldly policy is taking the place of tue iety and wisdom tht comes from above, and God will remove His prospering hand from the conference. Shall the ark of the covenant be removed from this people? Shall idols be smuggled in? Shall false principles and false precepts be brought into the sanctuary? Shall antichrist be respected? Shall the true doctrines and principles given us of God, which have made us what we are, be ignored?.... This is directly where the enemy, through blinded, unconsecrated men, is leading us." E. G. White, Manuscript 29, 1890.

"Christ has plainly taught that those who persist in open sin must be separated from the church..." E. G. White, Christ's Object Lessons, 71.

"The counsel of Christ to the Laodicean Church was being acted upon, and all who were feeling their poverty were buying gold (faith and love, white raiment (the righteousness of Christ), and eyesalve (true spiritual discernment)." E. G. White, Review and Herald, Vol. 6, 513, col. 3.

"How could they (Stanton and Caldwell) come from that meeting where the power of God was revealed in so marked a manner, and poclaim that the loud cry was that the commandment-keeping people were Babylon?" E. G. White, Review and Herald, Vol. 6, p. 514, cols. 1 and 2.

"Characteristics of True Reformers.--Here [Isa. 8:11-14] are given the characteristics of those who shall be reformers, who will bear the banner of the third angel's messsage, thse who avow themselves God's commandment-keeping people, and who honor God, and are earnestly engaged, in the sight of all the niverse, in building up the old waste places. Who is it that calls them, The repairer of the breach, The restorers of paths to dwell in? It is God. Their names are registered [written--Heb. 12:22, 23] in heaven as reformers, restorers, as raising the foundations of many generations." E. G. White, SDA Bible Commentary, Vol. 4, 1151.

"Organizations, institutions, unless kept by the power of God, will work under Satan's dictation to bring men under the control of men; and fraud and guile will bear the semblance of zeal for truth, and for the advancement of the kingdom of God." E.G. White, Testimonies to Ministers, 494.

"Christ speaks of the church over which Satan presides as the synagogue of Satan. Its members ar ethe children of disobedience. They are those who choose to sin, who labor to make void the holy law of God. It is Satan's work to mingle evil with good, and to remove the distinction between good and evil.
Christ would have a church that labors to separate the evil from the good, whose members will not willingly tolerate wrong-doing, but will expel it form the heart and life." E.G White, Review and Herald Articles, ol. 4, 243, cf. Signs of the Times, March 1, 1910.

"Satan has a large confederacy, his church. Christ calls them the synagogue of Satn because the members are the children of sin. The members of Satn's church have been constantly working to cast off the divine law, and confuse the distinction between good and evil. Satan is working with great power in and through the children of disobedience to exalt treason and apostasy as truth and loyalty." E.G. White, Testimonies to Ministers, 16.

"The day of God is right upon us, and the world has converted the church. Both are in harmony, and are acting upon a short-sited policy" E.G. White, General Conference Bulletin, 1st Quarter, 1900.

"God's professed eople are selfish and self-caring....They are idolaters, and are worse, in the sight of God, than the heathen, graven-image worshppers who have had no knowledge of a better way." Testimonies, vol. 2, 441-442.

"I have bene shown that the spirit of the world is fast leavening the church. You are following the same path as did ancient Israel. There is the same falling away from your holy calling as God's eculiar eople. You are having fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. Your [ecumenical] concord with unbelievers have provoked he Lord's disleasure. you know not the things that belong to your peace, and they are fast being hid from your eyes. Your neglect to follow the light will place you in a more unfavorable position than the Jews upon whom Christ pronounced a woe." Testimonies, vol. 5, pp. 75-76.