Bible Search

68:1

@@@^The foregoing inspired statements concerning the condition of the church, reveal, as does the message to the Laodiceans, that it is a critically serious one, which makes necessary the Lord’s sending reproofs and warnings, calling for a decided reformation, which will result either in reforming her, and thus causing God to accept her, or in hardening her, and thus causing Him to spue her “out of His mouth.” Rev. 3:16. “Let ministers and people remember that the gospel truth ruins if it does not save.” — @9Testimonies, @7Vol. 5, p. 134. Consequently, our salvation, our fitness for His eternal kingdom, lies in our accepting the message which the Lord sends us.

69:1

@@@^Without reading for oneself the publications of the @9Rod@7, one cannot know the wonderful change they make in the lives of all who truly accept them, nor can one appreciate the wonders of the prophecies which they reveal, many of which, heretofore, men have never even attempted to explain. No human wisdom could possibly unlock these mysteries of God which have been hidden for ages from the wise and prudent. Those who have not for themselves made “a thorough investigation” of the message which the Rod contains, and which has come “in the name of the Lord,” the @9Spirit of Prophecy @7counsels them not to say: “I am satisfied with my position. I have set my stakes, and I will not be moved away from my position, whatever may come. I will not listen to the message of this messenger; for I know that it can not be truth.” — @9Testimonies on Sabbath-School Work@7, p. 65.

70:3

@@@^So, as to implement his constant purpose of keeping Christendom beset with false teachers, the Devil is causing every wind of doctrine to blow in every direction. One after another he keeps these teachers shooting upward, like plants in the shade, only to wither when exposed to the sun. Thus keeping ever prominent the bad example of them and of their followers, he effectively discourages and frightens all who have the disposition to investigate any purported light on the Scriptures, thereby preparing them to reject the very message of Truth whenever God may send it.

71:1

@@@^When, therefore, “a message comes to you in the name of the Lord,” if you, because of the delusive messages which the enemy has brought in the past, refuse to investigate for yourself, saying, “There is no use, it is simply another ‘off shoot’; I know it cannot be the truth”; then, whether it be the Rod or some other publication which contains the message, certain it is that sooner or later, you will reject the very message you need to save you from the Laodicean sad deception.

73:2

@@@^“But beware of rejecting that which is truth. The great danger with our people has been that of depending upon men, and making flesh their arm. Those who have not been in the habit of searching the Bible for themselves, or weighing evidence, have confidence in the leading men and accept the decisions they make; and thus many will reject the very messages God sends to His people, if these leading brethren do not accept them.” — @9Testimonies to Ministers@7, pp. 106, 107.

74:4

@@@^@@Beloved Brethren:@^WHEREAS, We who are standing in the advancing light of the Third Angel’s Message have, as did those who accepted Present Truth in all ages, had our actions misunderstood, our motives impugned and our message misapprehended, “slighted spoken against, ridiculed, rejected,” and “denounced,” as “leading to enthusiasm and fanaticism” (1); and

75:2

@@@^Therefore, as a united body of believers in the message of Present Truth, as contained in the publications of @9The Shepherd’s Rod @7(which we believe have come in response to divine enlightenment, and are the “unrolling of the scroll” (5), in perfect harmony with the Third Angel’s Message as set forth in the Bible and @9Testimonies for the Church, @7we herewith declare:

75:3

@@@^Be it @9Resolved@7, That we direct our full support to the proclamation of Present Truth, in harmony with the S.D.A. doctrines as originally given through the Bible and the Testimonies; but that we respectfully protest against the actions of our brethren in disfellowshipping and excluding members from the churches which they have helped to build up, simply because they exercise their God-given rights in making a personal investigation of purported new light (6); and

14:3

@@@^@0@9Verses 23, 24 — “And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even My servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God, and My servant David a prince among them; I the Lord have spoken it.”@7@^The self-centered shepherds against whom the prophet is told to write, are to be replaced by one shepherd, David. When this takes place God’s people will then have but one shepherd. This, of course, cannot be Christ Himself, for Inspiration never calls Him David, but rather It calls Him the @9Son@7 of David. Since God’s people have always had, and still do have many shepherds, the truth stands out as clear as crystal that the David of verses 23 and 24 is yet to come, and that the shepherds whom Inspiration addresses are in particular those whom David is to succeed.

15:1

@@@^Ezekiel, then, was not given a vision of the shepherds in his day, nor of those before his day, but of the shepherds after his day — the day in which God raises up this antitypical David to feed His hungry and neglected flock. God’s people shall then no longer serve strangers, “But they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them.” Jer. 30:9. Here we see that not only Ezekiel, but Jeremiah also was given a vision of this same truth. Yes, all the prophets.

19:2

@@@^@0@9Verse 18 — “Seemeth it a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures? and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye must foul the residue with your feet?”@7@^Part of the cattle are accused of being selective, of eating and drinking only that which is to their liking, and of tramping the residue. They accept whatever Truth is agreeable to them, but reject the rest. Here we shall cite an example:

2:3

@@@^We need to pray this afternoon for help never to set aside God’s Word for human theories and speculations, but always to teach the plain truths of the Bible according to the Spirit, the only unquestionable authority — the end of all controversy, the foundation of our faith. Let us kneel.

11:1

@@@^Our subject today is found in Ezekiel, chapters 37 to 39. These chapters are long, and time will not permit us to read every verse, nor even to comment much on them. And so we shall not try to cover all the verses in chapters 38 and 39, nor say all that can be said. The verses we omit, however, really need no comment, for with this light at hand as you study the chapters at your own leisure the truth of them will stand out brightly.

9:3

@@@^The fact that Jezreel is to urge his brethren, the laity, to plead with the mother (with the ministry, to those who bring forth converts), that she put away her whoredom, the truth clearly stands out that this revival and reformation does not come to the laity through the ministry, but to the ministry through the laity.

19:4

@@@^The next question is, Where in the stream of time shall we look for this message-laden and trouble-burden church? in our time, in the past or what? The brass mountains give the clue, for the chariots came from between them. We should, therefore, first find out what the mountains symbolize, and where they stand in time. And as the chariots came from between the mountains, one standing to their left (in the future) and the other to their right (in the past), it is necessary to locate them first. The Biblical interpretation of a symbolical mountain is as follows: “Jerusalem shall be called a city of Truth; and the mountain of the Lord of hosts the holy mountain.” Zech. 8:3. The mountains in Zechariah’s prophecy, therefore, as elsewhere in the Bible, are seen to symbolize two governments, churches, very similar in nature (both of brass) and at two different times (one to the chariot’s right and one to their left). Being of brass, a metal that has everlasting qualities, that does not deteriorate, shows that they represent something eternal. Moreover the mountains being of the same symbolical material as that which the feet of Christ (Rev. 1:15) were shown to be (brass), it locates the mountains in the Christian era.

20:2

@@@^It is well understood that the church of today is made up of all kinds of materials, not of solid brass — not of true Christians only, but commingled with good and bad — wheat and tares. The truth is therefore obvious: There is to be another such sin-destroying and sinner-sifting Theocracy as the one in the day of Ananias and Sapphira who for sinning gave up the ghost as they fell at the apostle’s feet (Acts 5:1-11).

27:1

@@@^Now is your opportunity to act, and it is my wish and prayer that you, and every member of the Denomination, chooses to be on the side which this unveiled paradox of the ages plainly and definitely instructs you to be on. Do not let the grisled horses deceive you any longer. Meet their fair speeches with “Thus saith the Lord.” You take them to task on this strictly Biblical Truth.

6:2

@@@^Because the purification is now the Church’s only hope, the Devil is doing all in his power, through the medium of idolized men (apparently no less pious than the priests who crucified the Lord), to suppress knowledge of it, and to create fear, prejudice, hatred, and confusion against the Voice of God, and to blacken the character of His agencies. Moreover, the Enemy’s exalted zealots, so well satisfied that they have need of nothing, are already in spite of Heaven’s commands to the contrary, casting out of the churches anyone who investigates God’s “Message to the Laodiceans,” or who conforms to it. What, O, what has the Denomination degenerated into? What exceeding folly, too, for it to assume to dictate to its members whose writings they should read and whose they should not read, as if they had neither mind nor conscience of their own, and as if God either could not or would not convict them through their own intellects, but must depend on the intellects of the ministers who by such folly are unconsciously assuming to take God’s place! Their very act of not only discouraging but even prohibiting the reading of the publications, is in itself a strong evidence that the publications contain the Truth for this time, and that the Enemy wants God’s people to be ignorant of It. One can scarcely conceive of any other design so well calculated to make of God’s people mental and spiritual invalids and, in consequence, to keep them in submissive ignorance of the fact that the plan of salvation demands that they be enlightened Christians, able to see with their own eyes and to know with their own hearts what is what and who is who.

7:1

@@@^Both high and low seem to forget that no sooner the messengers of God appeared in their respective time, Judaism, Romanism, and Protestantism, all unwittingly fell prey to this foolish scheme. Their failure to bind forever in darkness the free-minded in their day, though, should now be an eye opener to us all that our hostile brethren, too, will fail to bind in darkness forever the free-minded of this day, for the free-minded, sooner or later, discover that anyone who cannot for himself decide what is truth and what is error, is destitute of the Spirit of God, having no contact with Heaven and having no part in it. Those who have not yet discovered this inviolable law, stand face to face with the stark reality that it is high time that they discover it immediately, and that they fully realize that in violating it they are only making absolutely certain of missing eternity, and that even though Noah, Daniel, and Job be their neighbors, and they hold tight to all three of them, yet, unless they stop breaking this inviolable law, they are doomed, they are damned. Then too, all who with closed eyes and heart condemn the work of others, are blind to the disastrous fact that “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it” directly from its source, “it is folly and shame unto him.” Prov. 18:13.

7:3

@@@^These publications, you note, unseal the Scriptures which constitute this “additional message” (See “Early Writings,” p. 277), all of which have heretofore been sealed, and thus enveloped in mystery, and surrounded by question marks, a fact which in itself is absolute proof that never before have more timely, more important publications entered Adventist homes. Perhaps you are fully aware of this. Should you, however, have questions which you would like to discuss in private, you need only request that one of us visit you while we are laboring in your vicinity. Also if you know of other open-minded, free-thinking, Truth-seeking brethren, I shall appreciate your mentioning how many, and If they wish you may send in their names and addresses either for our mailing list or for a private interview, or for both. You may address me: @3V. H. Jezreel, H. B.@3Mt. Carmel Center@3Waco, Texas