"BORDERLAND"

"My message to you is: No longer consent to listen without protest to the perversion of truth." Selected Messages Book 1, Pg. 196

The other day I came upon this bit of insight and as I pondered it in my mind, I could see that, sadly, there is much truth in it:

"Many of us Christians have become extremely skilful in arranging our lives so as to admit the truth of Christianity without being embarrassed by its implications. We arrange things so that we can get on well enough without divine aid, while at the same time ostensibly seeking it. We boast in the Lord but watch carefully that we never get caught depending on Him. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"

"Pseudo faith always arranges a way out to serve in case God fails it. Real faith knows only one way, and gladly allows itself to be stripped of any second way or makeshift substitutes. For true faith, it is either God or total collapse. And not since Adam first stood up on the earth has God failed a single man or woman who trusted Him.

"The man of pseudo faith will fight for his verbal creed but refuse flatly to allow himself to get into a predicament where his future must depend upon that creed being true. He always provides himself with secondary ways of escape so he will have a way out if the roof caves in.

"What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God as completely now as they know they must do at the last day." A. W. Tozer.

Here in the Spirit of Prophecy we see a statement that has much similarity to it:

"Although priding themselves on their enlightenment, they are ignorant both of the Scriptures and of the power of God. They must have some means of quieting their consciences, and they seek that which is least spiritual and humiliating. What they desire is a method of forgetting God which shall pass as a method of remembering Him." The Great Controversy pg. 572

This is why in the last days there will be such zeal among those that are actually trampling upon the law of God, to enforce, in the name of God, their own requirements. They will be doing what the people in Christ’s day tried to do, when they wanted to take Jesus by force and make Him king over their own plans and ideas. Jesus would have no part of that back then, and He will not today either.

We have among us as a people something that the devil wishes we did not have; do you know what that is?

"There will be a hatred kindled against the testimonies which is satanic. The workings of Satan will be to unsettle the faith of the churches in them for this reason: Satan cannot have so clear a track to bring in his deceptions and bind up souls in his delusions if the warnings and reproofs and counsels of the Spirit of God are heeded." The Publishing Ministry pg. 361

Yes brothers and sisters, it is the testimony of the Spirit of Prophecy, the mighty Gift of Prophecy bestowed on the little flock, to teach them and give them a clear firm platform to stand on, upon which they could reach the unity that Christ prayed for. By staying on this platform they would have a power that none could gainsay. The messages of that mighty angel of prophecy are such, that turned loose upon the earth would shake it to its very spiritual foundations; yea, indeed the gates of Hell tremble at the messages found in these books! Satan knows this and fears that God’s people will realize just what a mighty weapon they have in these wonderful books.

What do they do, these counsels? They talk about the Law; they uphold a special and peculiar way of life for the people of God; they raise the standards of piety high and still higher; they are full of do’s and don’ts and also why’s and why-not’s; and the carnal heart rises up and shouts—enough already! I want a religion that talks about LOVE! And what they really mean is. "I want to be able to indulge my appetites and be coddled and cozy’d right into heaven on a bed of ease and sensual indulgence."

I want to share a bit from a little parable-story someone sent around on the Internet—I am sorry, but I don’t know the author:

"Our pastor was an eighty year-old farmer who had done nothing during the past forty years but herd sheep. He had never received any pastoral training and didn't know much about pastoring a church, especially a large one. We had a million members besides the women and children. He assumed leadership because he led us out of Egypt where we had been slaves. He was arbitrary about everything, and never asked the members for their opinion, but dictated everything. He had absolutely no idea how to interest young people.

"He was real legalist, too. He was always talking about the law. Apparently, he had never heard about democracy. If someone broke one of his little regulations he always had a penalty for it. He claimed he got his instructions directly from God, but he sure didn't show any love in his administration. He had a death penalty for a lot of things like if you did anything on Sabbath that could be called work, the rest of the church members were supposed to stone you to death. That happened to one man when he gathered a few sticks to cook his meal.

"The pastor even tried to tell the parents how to raise their kids. They were to talk about the law when they went for a walk with their kids, when they worked in the field and even when they put them to bed at night. I got so tired of hearing about the law. I'd like a religion that talks about love."

Parallels—yes, because the carnal heart of man is the same in all ages; unless that heart is broken on the Rock and surrendered wholly to Jesus, to the Power of the indwelling Spirit to be brought into harmony with those very same laws and standards; there is no hope of salvation.

God’s true people have always loved His prophetic word; they have cherished the counsels, even when they hit home and cherished indulgences had to be painfully cut away from the life. But just to the degree that the heart has determined to cling to its sins, to that degree it rises up against the straight testimony.

Let’s see some more about what Satan knows about the Gift God gave us:

"The same spirit that prompted rebellion in heaven is at work in our churches. I am instructed to bring to your attention the light contained in the book "Great Controversy." If you have not this book, get it and read it prayerfully. We are living in the last days of this earth's history, and Satan is making determined efforts to subvert the mind. O that those who have for years been at war with the Testimonies God has graciously given in warnings to save His people from the snares of Satan, would come into harmony with the requirements of God. Light, precious light, has been given, and is the genuine higher education." Pacific Union Recorder 05-06-09

Wait a minute—what was that? What did she say IS higher education? YES, she said the Testimonies of the Spirit of Prophecy are the real higher education. And yet what do the so-called learned ones among us tell us? They are telling us that Ellen White had ‘her limitations’; that she didn’t have the education that we have today; that she could not have understood all the things that were going to happen in our day! What is the message of the Spirit of Prophecy to them? ‘These writings are the Higher Education’! So learned friends, if you are cavilling and cutting up and discarding the Testimonies of the Spirit—you are flunking out of God’s Higher Education!

Let me ask you—Did God have His limitations? Did the Holy Spirit not have as much ‘education’ as you have? Did the mighty Angel of Prophecy fail to understand what was to be in our days? You see this is what it boils down to, doesn’t it? Do you REALLY believe the Spirit of Prophecy writings are FULLY INSPIRED or not? May people give lip service to this, but when push comes to shove, and the counsels cross their paths and condemn their darling sins, then they have all these little ‘explanations’ about how times have changed and Mrs. White didn’t really understand. Our words tell on us friends, they tell on us when we claim one thing, but then excuse ourselves to do another.

"…After men have done their work in weakening the confidence of our churches in the testimonies, they have torn away the barrier, that unbelief in the truth shall become widespread, and there is no voice to be lifted up to stay the force of error. This is just as Satan designed it should be, and those who have been preparing the way for the people to pay no heed to the warnings and reproofs of the testimonies of the Spirit of God will see that a tide of errors of all kinds will spring into life. They will claim Scripture as their evidence, and deceptions of Satan in every form will prevail." 9MR pg. 198

How many today are claiming that we don’t need the Spirit of Prophecy because the Bible is enough and that is what Mrs. White said anyway? The Holy Spirit said that if we HAD STUDIED like we ought, but we HAVEN’T! If Mrs. White really felt her work under the Spirit was NOT needed, would she have struggled on in pain, in weakness, in sickness, in loneliness, for all those years; rising early and writing, writing, writing the counsel of the Spirit—year after weary year??

When you read a passage of the Spirit of Prophecy and have felt that power to lift the soul, have you ever raised a thought of gratitude to God for the ministry of this little woman who dedicated all to His service and toiled that you might have the counsels God wanted you to have? Think about it!

What about those who delight to say; "Well I just use the Bible, I don’t need the Spirit of Prophecy." We are warned that when Satan gets you to give up confidence in the Spirit of Prophecy, he REDOUBLES his efforts to get you! Do you want Satan to work twice as hard on you? Then just deny the Testimonies of the Spirit of Prophecy!

"When the Testimonies, which were once believed, are doubted and given up, Satan knows the deceived ones will not stop at this; and he redoubles his efforts till he launches them into open rebellion, which becomes incurable and ends in destruction. … They rise up with bitter feelings against the ones who dare to speak of their errors and reprove their sins." Testimonies for the Church Volume Five pg. 672

It is a fact that those who will, after at one time accepting the Spirit of Prophecy as inspired counsel, discard it, will later on do the same with the Bible! When tempted to doubt, remember this warning and promise:

"Men may get up scheme after scheme, and the enemy will seek to seduce souls from the truth, but all who believe that the Lord has spoken through Sister White, and has given her a message, will be safe from the many delusions that will come in these last days" Selected Messages, vol. 3, pp. 83-84.

You can’t say it any plainer, can you? But some say that because some ones advocating error often draw from the Spirit of Prophecy and use these writings to back up their error, this shows that the Spirit of Prophecy is not reliable. Well friends; they do the same thing to the Bible!

"It will be found that those who bear false messages will not have a high sense of honor and integrity. They will deceive the people, and mix up with their error the Testimonies of Sister White, and use her name to give influence to their work. They make such selections from the Testimonies as they think they can twist to support their positions, and place them in a setting of falsehood, so that their error may have weight and be accepted by the people. They misinterpret and misapply that which God has given to the church to warn, counsel, reprove, comfort, and encourage those who shall make up the remnant people of God. Those who receive the Testimonies as the message of God will be helped and blessed thereby; but those who take them in parts, simply to support some theory or idea of their own, to vindicate themselves in a course of error, will not be blessed and benefited by what they teach." BC TM pg. 42

There is a secret here and it applies both to the Spirit of Prophecy and the Bible; all inspired counsel needs to be widely read as a whole—you need to have an immersion course in inspiration. Read widely and often; read until you can see the great wholeness of God’s Word running like a golden thread through it all. Get the Bible and SOP on audiocassettes and listen, listen, listen! Turn off secular music, TV and entertainment and immerse yourself in the Words of God! As you do this pleading for the Divine enlightenment—vistas will begin to open up to you and you will SEE like you’ve never seen before! Then you will be quick to spot error because it will not fit with the pattern of God’s inspired Word.

Do you know what the eyesalve is, and why YOU have to apply it? (Anoint your eyes with eyesalve) It is the Holy Spirit, yes, but MORE—it is the Spirit of Prophecy applied to your heart by the One who gave it. This lets those who are BLIND regain their sight.

Now remember our quote at the beginning? "Although priding themselves on their enlightenment, they are ignorant both of the Scriptures and of the power of God. They must have some means of quieting their consciences, and they seek that which is least spiritual and humiliating. What they desire is a method of forgetting God which shall pass as a method of remembering Him." The Great Controversy pg. 572

We have among us now the masterpiece of attacks on the Spirit of Prophecy; Remember, the worldly churches want a 'method of forgetting God that will pass as a method of remembering Him’?

Well, among SDAs that have had contact with the Spirit of Prophecy and have been touched in any way by its power, there is sometimes a certain reluctance to actually come right out with the liberals and discard it entirely; it just doesn’t feel all that comfortable to do this; but then those pointed counsels; the health message; and so on, if they could just discard them somehow and still feel safe about it!

So they want to invent a method of dispensing with at least most of the Spirit of Prophecy that will pass for a method of honouring Ellen White and the Gift. So they have invented the concept that—‘Yes, the Spirit of Prophecy was a genuine gift of God; BUT only the very first writings, only the very original works, are to be depended upon at all’, And they differ with one another exactly when the cut-off point is, some say 1884; others the death of James White; Some think it was only the very first books printed in the 1850s.

But they all are accomplishing one thing; they are discarding some of the hardest hitting warnings on standards and diet that she ever wrote; and by doing what they are doing, they dispense with most or all of the health message and so on, AND they can do it while feeling more righteous than others, who are so ignorant as to think that all of the writings are inspired; and they can have the ego-boost that they alone are the ‘ones who know’; they are the defenders of the prophet! They have a knight-like MISSION to accomplish—to RESTORE what has never been taken away. Wow—what　 a heady snare from Satan that one is!

I know I will make a lot of people unhappy, but it needs to be said; those in Adventism that are taking the position that the writings were completely rewritten by Uriah Smith and some others, and here Mrs. White was there at home struggling along, writing the counsels and God, through the Holy Spirit and the mighty Angel of Prophecy was guiding her and revealing to her scenes past, present and future, laying up the golden truths as a legacy for us who live at the end of this earth’s history; writing out and putting forth counsel that would sit Satan back on his haunches when received and acted upon by God’s faithful and tried servants; And yet none of them knew—NONE of them even guessed—and that includes Mrs. White; AND GOD; they did not know that these books were all being rewritten to a form actually so dangerous they should not be read!

Friends—that is absolute blasphemy! Do you really want to believe God is that helpless and that STUPID? If God can’t protect the very gift that He sent to help guide YOU into heaven, how can you believe that He can protect YOU and even manage to save you?

What evidence do these guys use to support their claims? They find little bits of words that have been edited from one book to another, and claim that this destroys the value of the whole thing! Well friends—throw out your Bibles QUICK! Because in one gospel it says there are 2 demoniacs and in another it says 1! Dangerous error! Don’t read it!

I am going to tell you how you can KNOW the truth about whether or not the Spirit of Prophecy is no good after 1880--whatever; but first a story; A while back my mother was in the hospital and as I was visiting her, I was reading to her from the Desire of Ages.

In the next bed was a very ill lady who was asleep and her daughter was sitting quietly by her bed. I was reading softly so as not to disturb the sick lady and I didn’t know the other lady was there, as the curtains were drawn.

When I finished the chapter, I was helping Mom up to the bathroom and the daughter came up to me and said, "Thank-you so much! I have never heard anything as beautiful as that!"

There is a power in those books friends, a power that Uriah Smith just did not have. And as far as the other denominational leaders, why would they have done handsprings to get Ellen White off to Europe and later Australia, if they were reworking her writings to suit themselves and she was so dumb as to not even know it, or she knew, as some claim, but she didn’t lift a wing or peep!

Now as I promised I am going to tell you how you can KNOW for yourself, you won’t be able to convince all these knights in armour that are galloping in our midst as they most of them, sadly, do not want to know the reality of what they are doing—they’ll know someday—but it might be too late! But if you are honest and WANT to know-- here’s what to do—Get the audio tapes of Desire of Ages, Christ’s Object Lessons and the Great Controversy; Now get down and pray to God that He will send His Holy Spirit to help you to know the power He has put into those books. Listen to them in their entirety.

Don’t let others tell you what you can or can’t read; listen and you will know! You can read them also if you can’t get the tapes, but read them in large sections to get the flow and feel of them, not little bits picked out from here and there. You will know the power that is there for you and you will not give heed any further to those who, if they can’t steal all your birthright, will at least try to steal most of it. For those of us who have refused to go along with this ‘throw out the later books’ deal, and instead have gotten into them deeper, we have realized that they are especially important, for Satan to be putting so much effort into undermining them.

In answer to those that keep saying that because we love and live by all the precious Spirit of Prophecy counsel, we are haters of the original books, I don’t know how to get this across to you—we love the original books AND we love all the others also. I don’t know of one upholder of the entire Spirit of Prophecy who will tell you not to read the original books, they will just tell you, sure read them, but keep going—keep reading and you will NOT find a place where the power of those books suddenly changes, and you surely would if the author had changed.

What kind of a God would have allowed a feeble lady to go on year after year, rising at 2 and 3 AM, writing book after book, and yet He knew that after she had written the first handful, that was all that was necessary?

What kind of God is so powerless that He would allow the very messages He had commanded His people to build their faith on, to be so corrupted that if they followed them they would be lost?

The proof of the pudding is in the eating—read the books, read all of them, then read a few chapters by Uriah Smith—the difference is so glaring it would knock you over! His book may be a good scholarly history reference, but the power of the Spirit of Prophecy is not there. My sheep will KNOW!

Jesus asked the question; "Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" Matthew 7:9-11

To believe that the Heavenly Father would allow his children who were reaching out in faith to receive His Gift, to be given a poisonous thing, means that you believe Satan is stronger than God; there’s just no getting around it!

Our God is the Alpha and Omega; there is nothing happening now that He hasn’t expected and prepared for, nothing catches Him unawares! He knows the end from the beginning and He knew exactly what to put in those books and exactly how to protect these concepts and bring to us today at the time of need, just what is important to carry us through.

"What greater deception can come upon human minds than a confidence that they are right when they are all wrong!" 3T pg. 252. To deceive themselves into thinking they are defending what they are actually destroying. There was a movie a while back that had the title, ‘Children of a Lesser God’, is this the problem with these people? They may want to serve a powerless, impotent god, that allows himself to be tricked and thwarted in His care for His children; but I don’t worship that God; my God has Power; and the Spirit of Prophecy shows that Power, page after page and book after book. And YOU can know that POWER in your life also, come away from doubt, and worship my Great Heavenly Father, who knows how to give good gifts to His children!