The Church: Its Organization, Order and Discipline

No Lording Over God’s Heritage

In a Testimony dated May 26, 1896, we read: “Organizations, institutions, unless kept by the power of God, will work under Satan’s direction 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. Whatever in our practise is not as open as the day, belongs to the methods of the prince of evil. COOD 149.3

“The spirit of domination is extending to the presidents of our conferences. But if a man is sanguine of his own powers, and seeks to exercise dominion over his brethren, feeling that he is invested with authority to make his evil the ruling power, the best and only safe course is to remove him, lest great harm be done, and he loose his own soul, and imperil the souls of others. COOD 150.1

“This lording it over God’s heritage will create such a disgust of man’s jurisdiction that a state of insubordination will result. The people are learning that men in high positions of authority can not be trusted to mold and fashion other men’s minds and characters. The result will be a loss of confidence even in the management of faithful men. But the Lord will raise up laborers who realize their own nothingness apart from him.” COOD 150.2

From these quotations it is clearly seen that it is not the system of organization that is at fault, but the “perversion of it.” COOD 150.3