Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 8 (1893)

Lt 24, 1893

Gage, Fred

Napier, New Zealand

October 4, 1893

Previously unpublished.

Mr. Fred Gage
Battle Creek, Michigan

Dear Friend,

I have had your case, with a number of youth, presented before me, who are walking in perilous paths. Satan’s temptations were upon them, and they were making advanced steps in their own ruin. As the Lord has presented before me continuously the value of the human soul, I send you the warning given me from the Lord, Call a halt. Stop just where you are, for your soul’s sake, for Christ’s sake, repent, repent, repent, before it shall be forever too late. You cannot afford to travel and advance one step farther in your present course of action. You are infatuated, deluded, ensnared by satanic agencies. Satan has exultantly bound you to his chariot; but in the strength of God you can break the gilded chain, and unless you do this you are lost. 8LtMs, Lt 24, 1893, par. 1

Will you heed these words of warning? I inquire, Who hath bewitched you that ye should not believe the truth? What power has confused your senses that you cannot see your peril? And that in pursuing this course of action you will meet with eternal loss? Heaven and eternal life in the world made new is made everything to you. “Turn ye, turn ye ... for why will ye die?” [Ezekiel 33:11.] Long ago you turned your footsteps in the paths that leads to death. Your case has been presented before me in its aggravated character. Jesus has died for you that you might have eternal life. To separate from God is a fearful thing. To step from under the bloodstained banner of Prince Immanuel and take your position under the black banner of the powers of darkness is a terrible movement for you. The perils of the last days are upon us. Will you be found disloyal to God, a rebel against your Creator, on the side of the great adversary of Jesus Christ? 8LtMs, Lt 24, 1893, par. 2

You have had abundance of light and evidence. You need not be deceived. You have lost your discernment of the real nature and character of sin and its many disguises. It is deceitful in its very nature. Transgression of God’s law darkens the understanding, obscures the spiritual vision, blunts and stupefies every faculty of the soul. You have no excuse for your being infatuated with sin. You may now break with Satan. Why pursue your course onward and downward in guilt and transgression, listening to and inviting Satan’s specious arguments? They are lies from beginning to end and are leading you to shame and dishonor against your own soul, against your family, and to the dishonor of God who “so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” [John 3:16.] 8LtMs, Lt 24, 1893, par. 3

Notwithstanding you have educated yourself in skepticism and unbelief your own conscience tells you better. I do not want you who belong to God by Creation and redemption to refuse to be saved in God’s appointed way. In the name of God I tell you degradation and misery is surely your lot if you follow in the trail where your feet are now tending. There will surely be a reaping after the sowing of the seed. I entreat you to consider the harvest which you must reap in the future. Please consider the relation of cause to effect, and the retributive judgment which must come upon every transgressor of His law. Heed the burning truths, which I now present before you, of admonition and instruction. You will meet these words in the judgment. 8LtMs, Lt 24, 1893, par. 4

I have an intense, longing that you should be saved. I want that you should arouse before overpowering darkness, and depravity shall follow your course of action. Advance no farther in marring and cheapening the image of God in character, and deranging and degrading every power and capacity of your being. 8LtMs, Lt 24, 1893, par. 5

Cutting loose from God means binding yourself to Satan’s chariot. Impure in heart, unsanctified in desires, imaginings will come from Satan to mold your mind and his power will lead you where you did not suppose you would ever go. God hates your course of action which you make appear plausible in your own eyes. Angels of God look upon it with abhorrence. 8LtMs, Lt 24, 1893, par. 6

The serpent, armed with mortal sting, is prepared to strike you. Why, O why cannot you see that at all times, in all places, under all circumstances, that the transgression of the law of God, coming to you in whatever guise it may, even as an angel in garments of light, is Satan’s device, leading you on farther and farther from truth and from righteousness, causing sorrow among the angels of light, grieving the holy Spirit of God, dishonoring your Saviour who died for you, crucifying to yourself the Son of God afresh and putting Him to open shame. O, turn from sin, turn from transgression, turn from Satan’s temptations to which you have been yielding, turn from all sin with unutterable loathing. Hate the sins with intense hatred. 8LtMs, Lt 24, 1893, par. 7

Fly from the delusive snares of Satan as from a poisonous serpent. Give no place to them. Grant no indulgence to your passions. Your soul is in peril. Better surrender your life than the favor of God. Cultivate true, pure, holy affections. Your only safety is to ever bear in mind that you are standing in full view of the universe of heaven. One is looking upon you from heaven who says, “I know thy works.” [Revelation 3:15.] You cannot close any door or curtain to evade that Omniscient eye. Your most secret thoughts are known to Him. The character, the desire of every purpose, is known to Him. Clear as the light is every action before His searching glance. 8LtMs, Lt 24, 1893, par. 8

O, you have left eternity out of your reckoning. You have forgotten God. The holy intelligences in the heavenly courts are looking upon you with sadness as they witness your peril, and Satan playing the game of life for your soul. One after another of the precious graces of the Holy Spirit you have been losing while engaged in playing the game of life. Shall it be an entire, eternal loss to you? Shall Satan have the victory? Shall he substitute in the place of the heavenly graces which he steals from you one, by one, his own attributes? God forbid. 8LtMs, Lt 24, 1893, par. 9

It is not now too late for you to repent, to be converted and to win back the heavenly graces and be saved. You have been for long years encouraging a practical forgetfulness of the solemn realities of eternity. You will have a fierce struggle in changing your course of action, your channel of thought. Satan will not lose his hold of you readily, for he intends to use you as his agent, that by precept and example you will lead others away from God into forbidden paths. 8LtMs, Lt 24, 1893, par. 10

Yours with deep interest. 8LtMs, Lt 24, 1893, par. 11