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Who
Do You Worship?
Early
Writings, page 260
Many
look with horror at the course of the Jews in rejecting and crucifying Christ;
and as they read the history of His shameful abuse, they think they love Him,
and would not have denied Him as did Peter, or crucified Him as did the Jews.
But God who reads the hearts of all, has brought to the test that love for Jesus
which they professed to feel. All heaven watched with the deepest interest the
reception of the first angel's message.
But
many who professed to love Jesus, and who shed tears as they read the story of
the cross, derided the good news of His coming.
Instead of receiving the
message with gladness, they declared it to be a delusion.
They hated those who loved His appearing and shut them out of the
churches.
Those
who rejected the first message could not be benefited by the second; neither
were they benefited by the midnight cry, which was to prepare them to enter with
Jesus by faith into the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary. And by
rejecting the two former messages, they have so darkened their understanding
that they can see no light in the third angel's message, which shows the way
into the most holy place. I saw that as
the Jews crucified Jesus, so the churches had crucified these messages,
nominal and therefore they have no knowledge of the way into the most holy, and
they cannot be benefited by the intercession of Jesus there.
Like
the Jews,
who
offered their useless sacrifices,
they
offer up their useless prayers
to
the apartment which Jesus has left;
and
Satan,
pleased with the deception, assumes a religious character, and leads the minds of these
professed Christians to himself, working with his power, his signs and lying
wonders, to fasten them in his snare.
Some
he deceives in one way, and some
another.
He has different delusions prepared to affect different
minds.
Some
look with horror upon one deception, while they readily receive another.
Satan
deceives some with Spiritualism.
He
also comes as an angel of light
and
spreads his influence over the land
by
means of
false
reformations.
The
churches are elated,
and
consider that God
is
working marvelously for them,
when it is the work of
another spirit.
The
excitement will die away and leave the world
and
the church
in
a worse condition than before.
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