Manuscript Releases, vol. 8 [Nos. 526-663]

MR No. 576—God Condemns All Sexual Impurity

O, how disgusted is God with the tame, lifeless, Christless efforts made by some of those who profess to be his servants. God's work must be carried forward strongly and upward. This cannot be done unless the sensuality that corrupts the whole man is separated from the religious experience. This work must be done. 8MR 168.1

Church-members need to fast and pray, striving earnestly to overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. Not one particle of Sodomitish impurity will escape the wrath of God at the execution of the judgment. Those who do not repent of and forsake all uncleanness will fall with the wicked. Those who become members of the royal family and form God's kingdom in the earth made new will be saints, not sinners. Isaiah 30:1-3, 8-16. 8MR 168.2

Those who have had great light and have disregarded it stand in a worse position than those who have not been given so many advantages. They exalt themselves but not the Lord. The punishment inflicted on human beings will in every case be proportionate to the dishonor they have brought on God. Many by a course of self-indulgence have put Christ to open shame.—Letter 159, 1901, pp. 7, 8. (To S. N. Haskell, November 3, 1901.) 8MR 168.3

God is purifying unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. It is at the very time when God is purifying this peculiar people unto Himself that [unsanctified] individuals step in among us. Notwithstanding the straight truths they have heard—the terrors of the Word of God set before them, and all the blazing truth for these last days calculated to arouse Israel—they sin with a high hand, give way to all the loose passions of the carnal heart, gratify their animal propensities, disgrace the cause of God, and then confess they have sinned and are sorry! And the church receives them and says “Amen” to their prayers and exhortations, which are a stink in the nostrils of God and cause His wrath to come upon the camp. He will not dwell in their assemblies. Those who move on thus heedlessly, plastering over these sins, will be left to their own ways, to be filled with their own doings. 8MR 168.4

Those who anciently committed these sins were taken without the camp and stoned to death. Temporal and eternal death was their doom; and because the penalty of stoning to death is abolished, this sin is indulged in beyond measure, and is thought to be a small offense.—Manuscript 3, 1854. (“Testimonies for Churches in New York State,” February 12, 1854.) 8MR 169.1

Indulgence in unlawful things has become a power to deprave mankind, to dwarf the mind, and to pervert the faculties. Just such a state of things as exists today existed before the flood and before the destruction of Sodom. Dissipation is on the increase in our world. Handbills on which indecent pictures are printed are posted up along our streets to allure the eyes and deprave the morals. These presentations are of such a character as to stir up the basest passions of the human heart through corrupt imaginings. These corrupt imaginings are followed by defiling practices like those in which the Sodomites indulged. But the most terrible part of the evil is that it is practiced under the garb of sanctity. Our youth will be defiled, their thoughts degraded, and their souls polluted unless they are barricaded with the truth.—Letter 1, 1875, p. 16. (To S. N. Haskell, October 12, 1875.) 8MR 169.2

Released December 6, 1977.