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| We have a message of warning to the church. God says to you, "Be zealous and repent." "I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent." Precious time has been squandered in which you might have won souls to Christ,--souls that through your love of ease are now lost. Every member of the church should awake to duty now. May God help you to take on the burden. Let the church-members pray and fast and believe. Let the hearts of parents be turned to their children, and the hearts of children to their parents, "Lest I come," saith the Lord, "and smite the earth with a curse." Your souls are in peril. Shall the Sun of Righteousness set, and leave you enshrouded in the darkness of eternal night? {HS 286.6} |
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| The last time that I had spoken there was on the Sabbath following my husband's funeral. At that time many considered it almost presumptuous for me, in my feeble condition, to make the effort; but my great desire to speak words of entreaty and warning to the church, led me to venture. Had those words been heeded, the difficulties which have since occurred would not have been. The burden of my message was an admonition to the church to be pitiful, courteous, kind, and compassionate, to love one another as Christ had loved them. I urged them to put away their unkind thoughts toward their brethren, to cease talking of the faults and errors of others, and to search carefully their own hearts, correct their own defects of character, and purify their own souls by obedience to the truth. I entreated all to cherish a forgiving, Christlike tenderness for one another, and to guard the reputation of their brethren, remembering that the tongue is an unruly member, which, if not sanctified, if not restrained, may do great injury to those whom God loves and whom he is using to do his work. {RH, November 6, 1883 par. 8} |
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| To sound a warning to the church throughout the land, Ellen White hurried the production of Testimonies for the Church, volume 8, with its section on "The Essential Knowledge," dealing with God and nature and a personal God. She dwelt at length on the danger of speculative knowledge, her message buttressed with abundant scripture evidence of a personal God. The book The Ministry of Healing was in preparation at this time; there was included in it also a section entitled "The Essential Knowledge," dealing with speculative knowledge and the false and true in education. Thus Ellen White went on record with warnings that would continue to sound. {5BIO 306.2} |
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| Further than this, Eld. Smith questioned the propriety of bringing the testimony before the church at all. Thus he takes the responsibility of standing between God's word of reproof and the people. I committed the matter to Eld. Smith as an officer of the church. But in consideration of my past position in this work, in consideration of the connection God has been pleased to give me with his cause from its very rise, was it the prerogative of Eld. Smith, or of those whom he took into his counsel, to even question this matter? Shall he sit in judgment upon my work, or on my letters of warning to the church? This man, who has so long avoided disagreeable responsibilities; who has let matters drift whichever way they were disposed to go, rather than brace himself for duty, and with moral courage reprove and rebuke wrong; who has shunned so many duties belonging to him in his position of trust,--has now ventured to act in a new character, and to assume responsibilities which God hath not given him. He has placed himself and his influence in direct opposition to my work, so that I cannot reach the people to impress upon them the testimonies which God has given me. And there are others equally blinded, who will follow in this path. {PH117 42.2} |
