July 22, 2020
FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
PRESUMPTUOUS MISHANDLING OF GOD’S WORD PREPARES FOR SPIRITUALISM
“Bind up the testimony, seal the law among My disciples. . . . And when they say to you, Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter, should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead in behalf of the living? To the law and testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light (of truth) in them.”
Isa. 8:18,19,20, NKJV.
“In the days of Christ the leaders and teachers of Israel [the Jewish nation] were powerless to resist the work of Satan. They were neglecting the ONLY means by which they could have withstood EVIL SPIRITS. It was by the Word of God that Christ overcame the wicked one.”
“The leaders of Israel professed to be the expositors of God’s Word BUT they had studied it only to SUSTAIN their traditions, and enforce their man-made observances. By their interpretations they made it express sentiments that God has NEVER given.”
“Their mystical construction made INDISTINCT that which He had made PLAIN. They disputed over INSIGNIFICANT technicalities and practically DENIED THE MOST ESSENTIAL TRUTHS.”
“Thus infidelity was sown broadcast. God’s Word was ROBBED of its power, and EVIL SPIRITS worked their will. HISTORY IS REPEATING. With the open Bible before them, and professing to reverence its teachings, many of the religious teachers of OUR TIME are destroying faith in it as the Word of God. They BUSY themselves with dissecting the Word, and set their OWN OPINIONS ABOVE ITS PLAINEST STATEMENTS. In their hands God’a Word LOSES its regenerating power. This is WHY infidelity (unfaithfulness, dishonesty) and iniquity (lawlessness) is rife (wise-spread and prevailing)!”
“When Satan has undermined faith in the Bible, he directs men to OTHER sources for light and power. THUS HE INSINUATES HIMSELF. Those who turn from the plain teaching of the SCRIPTURES and the convicting power of God’s HOLY SPIRIT ARE INVITING THE CONTROL OF DEMONS.”
“Criticism and speculation concerning the Scriptures have opened the way for SPIRITUALISM and THEOSOPHY—these modernized forms of ancient heathenism—to gain a foothold even in the PROFESSED churches of our Lord Jesus Christ [claim to be Christians]!”
“Side by side with the preaching of the gospel, AGENCIES are at work which are but the MEDIUM of lying spirits. Many a man tampers with these merely from CURIOSITY, but seeing the evidence of a MORE than human power, he is lured on, UNTIL HE IS CONTROLLED BY A WILL STRONGER THAN HIS OWN. HE CANNOT ESCAPE FROM ITS MYSTERIOUS POWER. The defenses of the soul are broken down. He has no barrier against sin.”
“When ONCE the restraints of God’s Word and His Spirit are rejected, no man knows to what DEPTHS of degradation he may sink. Secret sin or master passion may hold him a captive as helpless as the demoniac at Capernaum. Yet his condition is not hopeless.”
HOW? WHY? “The means by which we can OVERCOMe the wicked one is that by which Christ OVERCAME,—the power of the Word. God does not control our minds WITHOUT OUR CONSENT; but if we DESIRE to know and to DO His will, His promises are ours: ‘You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.’ ‘If any man wills to do His will, he shall know of the teaching.’ John 8: 32; 7 :17. Through [genuine, living] faith in these promises, every man may be DELIVERED from the snares of ERROR and the control of SIN.” E.G. White, Desire of Ages, pp. 257, 258.
It was Eve’s seemingly harmless “curiosity” that led her to experiment with what many think was a “minor” sin of disobeying the plain command of God that opened the floodgates of so-called “knowledge of good and evil.” Sin entered into the world and death, by sin, passed on to all men. It is fatal to repeat that “little sin.” May we never grieve away the Holy Spirit by pleading “excuses.” Both Adam and Eve tried it in vain. And God and His truth never changes. NMF