Testimony for the Church — No. 16

Epistle Number Five

Dear Bro. and Sr. ——: June 12, 1868, I was shown some things in reference to your cases. You have a work to do, but see it not. You have not been burden-bearers. You should feel greater interest in the work and cause of God than you do. T16 63.4

I was shown that you are blinded by the love of the world, so that you do not see how great an influence the world has over you. You do not feel that a special weight of responsibility rests upon you. You do not realize the importance of the time, and the work to be accomplished. You are like persons asleep. Unity is strength. There are so many backward ones, who take no burdens, that there is great feebleness in the church. You are not workers with Christ. The spirit of the world is shutting from your hearts impressions which the truth should make. It is important that every one now come up to the work, and act as though they were living men, laboring for the salvation of souls who are perishing. If all in the church would come up to the help of the Lord, we should see a revival of his work such as we have not hitherto witnessed. God requires this of you, and of each member of the church. It is not left with you to decide whether it is best for you to obey the call of God. Obedience is required, and unless you obey, you will stand on worse than neutral ground. Unless you are favored with the blessing of God, you have his curse. He requires you to be willing and obedient, and he says, Ye shall eat the good of the land. A bitter curse is pronounced on those who come not up to the help of the Lord. “Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord. Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof, because they came not up to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty.” T16 63.5

Satan and his angels are in the field to oppose every step of advance God's people make, and the help of every one is required. The influence of unbelieving friends affects you more than you are aware of. They bring you no strength, but darkness and unbelief. T16 64.1

Bro. and Sr. ——, you have an individual work in the vineyard of the Lord. You have thought and cared too much for yourselves. Set your hearts in order, and then be in earnest. Inquire, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do.” God requires of you a deep, earnest reaching out after him. He bids you search your own hearts diligently, to discover all there that prevents your bringing forth much fruit, and that fruit that will remain. Why you possess no more of the Spirit of God is, you do not cheerfully bear the cross of Christ. In the last vision, I saw that you were deceived in regard to your strength of love for this world. The cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and you become unfruitful. God has required us to bear much fruit. He will not command, without giving with the command power for the performance of it. God will not do our part of the work, neither does he require that we do his. It is God that worketh in us, but we must work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. “Faith without works is dead, being alone.” Faith must be sustained by works. The doers of the work are justified before God. You displease God in talking of your poverty, while you have abundance. All that you possess belongs to him, yet he has seen fit to make you a steward of it for a short time. God is testing and proving you. How will you bear the test? He will require his own with usury. T16 65.1

You have fixed your eyes upon the things you have done in different directions, and it looks large to you. But had you done very much more, you would have done no more than your duty, and you would have been far happier had your hearts expanded, and your hands dispensed to the cause of God and the needy. God calls for you to bring your offering to the altar, and not hold it within reach merely, but lay it on the altar. The altar sanctifies the gift when it is placed upon it, and not before. T16 65.2

You are not as separate from the world as God requires you to be. You see not, and do not understand your danger. You are led astray by your love of the world. You both need to take a deeper draught at the fountain of truth. T16 66.1

Unless you do come into a different condition, where you can honor God with your influence and your substance, the curse of God will come upon you. You may gather, but God will scatter. Instead of your health springing forth speedily, you will become like a withered branch. God calls for workers—men who can and will feel for the salvation of souls, and will sacrifice anything that they may be saved. No other one can do this work for you. The offerings of others, if ever so liberal, can not take the place of yours. It is a surrender to God which you have to make, which no other can make for you. It is only the Spirit's power, working through mighty faith, that can make you able to successfully resist the many snares Satan has laid for your feet. The words and example of your Redeemer will be the light and strength of your heart. If you follow and trust in him, he will not leave you to perish. You fear too much the displeasure of those who do not love and serve God. Why should you wish to keep the friendship of your Lord's enemies? or be influenced by their opinions? “Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?” If the heart was right, there would be a more decided separation from the world. T16 66.2

The Lord would have done a great and good work in this vicinity last spring, had all felt the need of this work, and come up to the help of the Lord. There was not union of action. All did not feel the necessity of the work, and engage in it heartily. There was not a surrendering of all to God. You were shown me as being troubled and perplexed, a mist of darkness gathering over you. You were questioning. You were not in a position to receive strength yourselves, nor to impart it to others. It is a solemn, fearful time. Here is no room for idols, no place for concord with Belial, nor place for friendship with the world. Those whom God accepts and sanctifies to himself are called to be diligent and faithful in his service, being set apart and devoted to him. It is not a form of godliness, nor a name upon the church records, that constitute a “living stone” in the spiritual building. It is being renewed in knowledge and true holiness, being crucified to the world and made alive in Christ, that unites the soul to God. The followers of Christ have one leading object in view. The one great work, the salvation of their fellow men. Every other interest should be inferior to this, and this great enterprise should engage the earnest effort and the deepest interest. T16 67.1

God first requires the heart—the affections. He requires his followers to love and serve him with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their strength. His commandments and grace are adapted to our necessities, and without them we cannot be saved, do what we may. Acceptable obedience he requires. The offering of goods, or any service, will not be accepted without the heart. The will must be brought into subjection. The Lord requires in you a consecration to him, and a greater separation from the spirit and influence of the world. T16 67.2

“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” Christ has called you to be his followers, to imitate his life of self-sacrifice and self-denial, to be interested in the great work of the redemption of the fallen race. You have no just sense of the work God requires you to perform. Christ is your pattern. That in which you are deficient, is love. This pure principle, holy love, distinguishes the character and conduct of Christians from worldlings. Divine love has a powerful, purifying influence. It is to be found in the renewed heart, and where this exists, love will naturally flow out to your fellow men. T16 68.1

“Love one another,” says our Saviour, “as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Christ has given us an example of pure, disinterested love. You have not as yet seen your deficiency in this respect, and your great need to have this heavenly attainment, without which, all your good purposes, your zeal, even if it be of that nature that you could give your goods to feed the poor, and your body to be burned, is nothing. Charity you need, which suffereth long, is not easily provoked, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Without the spirit of love, no one can be like Christ. With this living principle in the soul, no one can be like the world. T16 68.2

The conduct of Christians is like their Lord. He has erected the standard, and it is left for us to say whether we will rally around it, or not. Our Lord and Saviour laid aside his dominion, his riches and glory, and sought after us, that he might save us from misery, and make us like himself. He humbled himself, and took upon him our nature that we might be able to learn of him, and follow him, step by step, imitating his life of benevolence and self-denial, and follow him to Heaven. You cannot equal the copy, but you can resemble it, and according to your ability do likewise. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength; and thy neighbor as thyself.” That love must dwell in your hearts, that you will be ready to give the treasures and honors of this world, if thereby you may influence one soul to engage in the service of Christ. T16 69.1

God bids you with one hand, faith, take hold of his mighty arm, and with the other hand, love, reach perishing souls. Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. Follow him. Walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Walk even as he walked. This is the will of God, even your sanctification. The work you have to perform, is to do the will of him who sustains your life for his glory. If you labor for yourselves, it can profit you nothing. To labor for others’ good, to be less self-caring, but more in earnest to devote all to God, will be acceptable to him, and be returned by his rich grace. T16 69.2

God has not apportioned you your lot, to merely watch over and care for yourselves. You are required to minister to, and watch over, others, and in this exercise you will develop your errors, that you may correct them, and will strengthen the weak points in your character that need strengthening. To remove from us everything which is not exactly agreeable, is not imitating Christ. This is the part of the work we have to perform; not impatiently, fretfully, unwillingly, but cheerfully, gladly, in order to reach Christian perfection. You should be very jealous of the honor of God. How circumspectly should you walk, where now your course in some things is not as it should be. If you could see the pure angels with their bright, searching eyes intently fixed on you, watching to record how the Christian glorifies his Master; or could you observe the exulting, yet sneering triumph of the Devil's angels, as they trace out every crooked way, and then quote Scripture which is violated, and compare the life with this Scripture which you profess to follow, but from which you swerve, you would be astonished and alarmed for yourselves. It takes the entire man to make a valiant Christian. Oh, what blind, short-sighted creatures we are! How little do we discern sacred things, and how feebly do we comprehend the riches of his grace. T16 70.1

One thing I wish to impress upon your minds. You have the special mediums of Satan closely connected with you, and their power and influence has a manifest effect upon you, because you do not remain near enough to God to insure the special aid of angels that excel in strength. Your union is altogether too strong with your Lord's enemies, and you perceive not that you are in danger of making shipwreck of your faith. If you encourage, in the least, the temptations of Satan, you place yourselves upon his battleground, and then the conflict will be long and sore before you obtain the victory and triumph in the name of Jesus who has conquered him. T16 70.2

Satan has great advantages. He possessed the wonderful intellect of an angel's powers, of which few form any just idea. Satan was conscious of his power, or he would not have engaged in a conflict with the mighty God, the everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace. Satan closely watches events, and then will take one who has especially a strong spirit to oppose the truth of God, and will even reveal unfulfilled events, that he may secure himself a seat more firmly in their hearts. He who did not hesitate to brave a conflict with Him who holds creation as in his hand, has malignity to persecute and deceive. He holds mortals in his snare at the present time. He has lost none of his skill and his shrewdness during his experience of nearly six thousand years. All this time he has been a close observer of all that concerns our race. T16 71.1

Those who have bitterly opposed the truth of God, Satan uses as his mediums. He will appear to them, assuming the person and garb of another. He may select a friend of the medium. He will increase their faith by using the words and recounting instances which really have taken place, of which the medium knew nothing, or that are about to take place. Sometimes previous to a death, or an accident, he gives a dream, or personates another and converses with the medium. He even imparts knowledge by means of his suggestions. It is not wisdom from above, but from beneath. The wisdom taught by Satan will be opposed to the truth, unless, to serve his purpose, he clothes himself apparently with the light which enshrouds angels. He will come to a certain class of minds and will sanction a part of what Christ's followers believe to be truth, while the other part he warns them to reject as dangerous and fatal error. T16 71.2

Satan is a master workman. His infernal wisdom he employs with good success. He is ready and able to teach those who reject the counsel of God against their own souls. He will clothe with every possible good, and make attractive, the bait which he has found will avail in bringing souls into his net, and fasten his hellish grasp upon them. All who are thus ensnared will have learned their lesson at a dreadful expense, that of selling Heaven and immortality for a deception that is fatal in its consequences. This adversary, the Devil, is not void of wisdom or strength. He goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He will work “with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved.” Because they rejected the truth, “God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. We have a powerful, deceptive foe to contend with, and our only safety is in Him who is to come, who will consume with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy with the brightness of his coming, this arch deceiver. T16 72.1

I commend this to you in the fear of God, and implore you to arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you life. T16 73.1

E. G. W.

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