Testimony
to the Church
When at Roosevelt, N.Y., August 3, 1861, the condition of
God's people was presented before me. Many failed in coming up to the standard
set up by our Saviour. They are in an alarming condition, not careful to
examine the foundation of their hope, but are indifferent to their state,
and self-deceived. Some, I saw, had departed from God, and were united
with the spirit of the world. As different fashions are introduced, one after
another have fallen back from their steadfastness, and have lost their peculiarity.
It is crossing to come out from the world and be separate. As soon as individuals cease warring against the spirit
of the world they are Satan's easy prey. Our efforts are too feeble to resist
an influence which leads us from God, and which brings us in union with the
world.
Those who separate from God and lose their spirituality, do not fall back all at once into a state
which the true Witness calls lukewarm. They conform to the world little by
little. As its influence steals upon them, they fail to resist it and maintain
the warfare. After the first step is taken to have friendship with the world,
darkness follows and they are prepared for the next. At every step they take in
the downward course darkness gathers about them, until they are enshrouded. As
they conform to the world they lose the transforming influence of the Spirit of
God. They do not realize their distance from God. They think themselves in good
case because they profess to believe the truth. They grow weaker and weaker,
until the Spirit of God is withdrawn, and God bids his angels,Let them alone! Jesus
spues them out of his mouth. He has borne
their names to his Father; he has interceded for them, but he ceases his
pleadings. Their names are dropped, and they are left with the world. They realize no change.
Their profession is the same. There has not been so glaring a departure from
the appearance of right. They had become so
assimilated to the world that when heaven's light was withdrawn they did not
miss it.
Truths have been committed to our trust more sacred than
were ever imparted to mortals upon earth, yet we have not as a people been
faithful to our trust. Unfaithful
Sabbath-keepers are the worst enemies the truth can have. If those who profess the truth would live it out, then
the Lord would magnify his name among them, and make them a powerful people.
The inhabitants of the earth are given to idolatry. They
are filling the cup of their iniquity. Fashion is a tyrant, and nearly all are
slaves to it. Travel in the cars, steamboats, or where you will, and you will
see the human frame covered with extravagant decorations, and deformed with
hoops. Modesty is rare; it seems to have departed from this enlightened age. Sodom and Gomorrah will rise up in the judgment and
condemn this generation, for if they had been privileged with the light which
now shines upon the inhabitants of the earth, they would have repented long
ago.
God will have a separate and peculiar people. Their faith
is peculiar. Their prospects are peculiar and glorious, and if they do not
consider the heavenly inducement offered them of sufficient value to lead them
to renounce the fashions of the world, when God rises up to punish the
inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, they must perish with them. Please
read Isaiah
26:21; James 4:4.
"Know ye not that the friendship of the world is
enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy
of God." 1 John
2:15: "Love not the world, neither the things
that are in the world. If any man love the world, the
love of the Father is not in him." We are called upon in these perilous
times to elevate the standard. It has been left to trail in the dust. The
fashions of the world hold God's people in bondage.
Those who have really chosen God and heaven as their
portion will be peculiar. The sanctifying influence of the truth has separated
them from the world, and they will have moral courage to carry out their faith,
and by their simple plainness of dress and holy living condemn the idolatry and
extravagance of this age. Professed Sabbath-keepers who would advocate the
wearing of hoops and useless ornaments, no matter how high their profession,
the truth has not had its sanctifying influence upon the heart. They are not
dead to the world. When the tree dies the leaves fall off. There is just as
wide a difference between the follower of Jesus Christ and the worldling, as there is between a tree clothed with its
green foliage and a dead and leafless tree. The truth accomplishes a work for
the receivers. It causes them to die to the world, and live unto God. Such can
receive no satisfaction in adorning their heads with flowers, while they have a
true sense of the sufferings of their Redeemer on account of their sins. His
sacred brow was encircled with cruel thorns, which bruised his holy temples.
This thought should be enough to cause every true follower of Jesus to discard
any useless ornaments to decorate their bodies.
Some Sabbath-keepers so earnestly desire to have
friendship with the world, that they mangle their feelings and make wretched
work of following Christ. They desire the
approval of God and the friendship of the world too. Such, I saw, would
certainly lose heaven. They do not enjoy this world, therefore they lose both. In these hours
of probation all can choose life if they will. Their fruits will show their choice. For a life of humble obedience
here, God will grant the rich reward hereafter. He
will accept of nothing but entire consecration. A
dreadful deception is upon many minds, even of Sabbath-keepers. They have
neglected to cherish and follow the light God has given them, and have been
left completely deceived. Please read Matthew
7:21-23. "Not every one
that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he
that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in
that day, Lord, Lord have we not prophesied in thy name? and
in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done
many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you;
depart from me, ye that work iniquity."
Souls will come up to the day of God's visitation under a
perfect deception. They had marked out a course for themselves. They did not
let the Bible place the bounds for them. They did not heed the exhortation,
"Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord,
and touch not the unclean; and I will receive you."
I was shown that God is not slack concerning his
promises, if his people will obey his requirements. He is faithful who hath
promised. The condition of our being received of God is, to separate ourselves
from the world. The followers of Jesus and the world can not
unite. Please read John 17:14:
"I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they
are not of the world." John
15:18, 19: "If the world hate
you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the
world would love his own; but because ye are not of
the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you."
There is a disposition among some Sabbath-keepers to
rejoice that they have truths that can be sustained by the word of God, and
that the unbeliever can not gainsay, and they rest
satisfied. They make no advancement in the divine life; their faith is not made
perfect by works; they do not feel their lack of spirituality, but boast that
they have the truth, and they sometimes advocate it in an unbecoming manner. They feel rich and increased with goods, and have need
of nothing, and know not that they are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and
blind, and naked. What stronger delusion can deceive the human mind than that
which makes us believe we are on the right foundation, and God accepts our
works, when we are not conforming to his will, and when we mistake the form of
godliness for the spirit and power thereof, supposing we need nothing when we
need all things. Please read James 1:27:
"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and
to keep himself unspotted from the world."
What a work is before us! Self-denial and the cross were
shown me as standing all along in the way of life. Can we persevere in such a warfare as this? Grace is against nature, and the whole
strength of self is opposed to the victory. Can we take up the cross and bear
it after Jesus, and consent to be like him who was tempted in all points like
as we are, yet without sin? When the
pleasures of the world come before us, we must renounce them instantly, and
prefer before these the favor of God and the cross of Christ. And in this self-denying course we shall obtain
victories, and in the end win eternal glory. The unbelieving world
were shown me, unwilling to submit to the claims and order of God's
government. They refuse obedience to his will; they are at variance with their
Maker, and their words and works are opposed to the principles and laws of his
government. Therefore we can not enjoy, and be in
harmony with, the friendship of the world, and not become estranged from God.
Amos 9:9, 10,
was presented before me. "For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the
house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall
not the least grain fall upon the earth. All
the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The
evil shall not overtake nor prevent us."
God's people will be tested and proved. The plain and
pointed testimony must act a prominent part in this work. In these days of
darkness and peril who is able to stand and speak the whole truth? Multitudes
of teachers prophesy smooth things. They see
no special cause of alarm in the present condition of the professed people of
God. The people are asleep, and the teachers are asleep. They cry, Peace, peace, and the multitude that hear
believe their report and are at ease. This makes the necessity greater for
faithful teachers to bear the pointed, faithful testimony. The present is a time of scouring and purifying, a time
of warfare and trial. The house of Israel is
being sifted, even as corn is sifted in a sieve. The chaff must be removed, and it will require close work to separate
the chaff from the kernels of grain. God's
discerning eye will detect the smallest particle of chaff, and yet he will not
cause to fall upon the ground the least kernel of grain.
Ellen G.
White.