Unbending Truth, Human Segregation

Malachi 3:16 Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. 17 And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. 18 Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.

The message of this hour is to answer some questions  because the time in which we are living at this present time is fraught of many confusing observations. In the sense of the proclamation of Revelation 14:6 & 7 – the first angels’ message. We have been dwelling under the time of the judgment.

Revelation 14: 6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, 7 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

The preaching of the gospel, according to this message of the first angel, culminates. In what? He’s preaching to the world. He’s saying the hour of God’s judgment is come.

When was this message of the first angel first proclaimed? When?

The first and second messages [Revelation 14:6-8] were given in 1843 and 1844. {CTr 338:3}

That was a long time ago. “The hour of God’s judgment is come”was proclaimed first through William Millers preaching and it was directly after 1798, which was the beginning of the time of the end. It’s when the preparation for the proclamation of the first angel started and it was proclaimed to the Christian world and to all who would listen that the hour of God’s judgment had come. We have been living in the hour of God’s judgment ever since 1844.

This message of the first, the second angel, and the third angel is so powerful that the destiny of the whole human race hang upon how those messages were received. How was the Third Angel’s message articulated in front of the people?

Revelation 14:9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, 10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: 11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. 12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Can you see a destiny here? Those who would not receive the message of the first and second angel were then addressed and said, “You are going to suffer under the wrath of God because here is the judgment; here is the investigation.” Those who receive the message are here. Here is the patients of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus – those who’ve received it. Those who rejected have put themselves in a position where they are going to suffer the consequences of their rejection.

Sister White describes this in a very powerful manner

I saw a company who stood well guarded and firm, giving no countenance to those who would unsettle the established faith of the body. God looked upon them with approbation. I was shown three steps—the first, second, and third angels’ messages. [Said my accompanying angel, “Woe to him who shall move a block or stir a pin of these messages.] The true understanding of these messages is of vital importance. {EW 258:3}

Now comes the most important part of that.

The destiny of souls hangs upon the manner in which they are received.” {EW 258:3}

Not just whether they accept it, but the manner in which they are received.

They are of vital importance. And that has been going on since 1843/44.

From the first angels’ message through the history from that date, through to the third and the Revelation 18 angel, is what our scripture reading described.

Malachi 3:16 Referring to the people who take these three angels’ message and meet together often, speak together, and meditate together about these messages. They think upon his name. God says to those people that are doing that:

Malachi 3:17 And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.

On the day of God’s investigative judgment that commenced in 1844, he is making up his jewels. He’s gathering his jewels together from 1844 through the span of time arriving in Revelation 18:1-4, and especially with 4.

Revelation 18:4 …Come out of her [Babylon], my people…that ye receive not of her plagues. –

Don’t have to suffer with the consequence of the people who are rejecting these messages. The destiny of souls hangs upon them.

This is God making up his jewels ever since that time. Here we are in 2022, think as the Lord has been making up his jewels all through that time, where do we stand today? As it says there in verse 18, as we go through this period of time, the people who accept the three angels’ messages and the people who reject them or those who accept them in what manner? What manner of acceptance is that?

As we look through the history from that time to now, it says, then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.

What are we presented with by the time we get to 2022 from 1843 and 44? Has not the Lord been gathering us jewels over all that time? Have not people been making their decision as to whether they will accept the message that was proclaimed back there in 1844 through the history to the time when the pioneers passed away and then comes their children?

Remember we often read as the reformers, their children, the new converts, the new model, and the cause. How do they respond now from their children which are our grandparents down to us today and right to this very moment?

What do we expect to see now at such later time? Is it not true that you shall return and discern between the righteous and the wicked? We shall discern between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.

The angel, the mighty angel from heaven, is to lighten the earth with His glory (Revelation 18:1), while he cries mightily with a loud voice, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen” (Verse 2)…. We would lose faith and courage in the conflict, if we were not sustained by the power of God. {3SM 425:4}

This is serious, a serious utterance here. The angel is identifying the fallen Babylon, it’s people, who are not receiving the message of the first, second and third angels message in the right manner. These people are fallen and we are in danger of losing faith and courage in this conflict if we are not sustained by the power of God.

It is my prayer and my purpose here to learn from the power of God what we experience around us and how to meet it.

Every form of evil is to spring into intense activity.

As I look at my experience of the past, I know what this means. Every form of evil is springing into intense activity around me from my youth upward.

Evil angels unite their powers with evil men, and as they have been in constant conflict and attained an experience in the best modes of deception and battle, and have been strengthening for centuries, they will not yield the last great final contest without a desperate struggle. All the world will be on one side or the other of the question

The whole world, as we are coming to this final scene of our generation today, the whole world has been deceived by the arts and wilds of Satan and the evil angels who have attained and experienced in the best modes of deception and battle – the best modes. How can you deceive Christians in the best way?

We are watching this through history from the time of 1844 to our time. I’ve done that. I’ve examined closely under inspiration – the history.

Where we stand today? We are today in a position more than any other time that we are seeing the world in taking it side on one side or the other of the question. That’s where we stand today.

The deceptions of Satan have worked in such a way which the pioneers of Adventism have proclaimed in the first, second, and third angels’ messages and all the detail of that. How do we stand in regards to the people today? What are they doing with these messages? How well have they established themselves in rejecting or accepting this message?

This very time, would it be out of place to discern between the righteous and the wicked? Would it be wrong? Because It says at that time, you will discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.

I want to consider with you this hour. Are we not living at the time when people have settled themselves into a particular response and they won’t change? How real is that today after all those years?

How is God in this day making up his jewels? How is he doing it in this day? We know Revelation 7:1-4, let’s look at it in detail because ever since 1844, what threats have this world been under? Remember the war that was threatening in 1848 in Europe?

Revelation 7:1 And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. 2 And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, 3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. 4 And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.

The subject of 144,000.

Are you picking something up here? In that day, in the day of God’s judgment and the day of God’s investigative judgment, the messages are given – of the three angels, and the Revelation 18 angel, and the manner in which they are received – is going to reveal on which side of the question everybody’s going to stand and he is making up his jewels ever since 1844.

Who are they? What is happening? Hold the winds until we have sealed the servants of God in their forehead. Until these jewels of the servants of God are made up (144,000). This subject has been torn apart from what it used to be taught us in the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

People have got all sorts of ideas. They think that the 144,000 are going to be gathered right, just before Jesus comes. No, they are being gathered ever since the angels were called upon to hold back the winds of strife, which started in 1848 when there was going to be strife. For one reason or another, that strife stopped, then it came to the first world war, then the second world war.

Where do we stand today? Have people being made up? Are we right on the cusp of the final recognition of who’s on the Lord’s side and who is not?

What actually is the Sealing? What is it?

Just as soon as the people of God are sealed in their foreheads—it is not any seal or mark that can be seen, but a settling into the truth, both intellectually and spiritually, so they cannot be moved. {4BC 1161.6}

How important that statement is! That’s what’s happening ever since 1844. People settling into the truth of the three angels’ messages. The winds of strife being held back to observe these winds of strife taking sort of effect here or there, but then held back. As these people are growing up in this period of time, they are settling into the truth, both intellectually and spiritually, so that they cannot be moved.

Just as soon as God’s people are sealed and prepared for the shaking, it will come. Indeed, it has begun already; the judgments of God are now upon the land, to give us warning, that we may know what is coming. {4BC 1161.6}

Every word that I read in the SP relevant to this subject throws me into the enlightenment of understanding where are we today? We are in a place if we are following the true messages of the three angels as given by the pioneers, and we bring our lives into harmony with that. We’re settling into the truth. The people that are settling into the truth and cannot be moved are on that side of the question, and the ones who are not receiving this message or receiving it in a false manner are on the other side of the question.

That’s where we stand today, brother and sisters. Let me enlarge this because those people that are receiving that message, they are settling in and cannot be moved. They’re being held by the truth. Settling into the truth! The truth is going to carry on through and be victorious at the end. The people that are attached to that truth will be victorious. But the people who are in the wrong manner, occupying their minds with this truth in the wrong way, they are settling into a position that they can no longer be moved as well. I’ve experienced that. No matter how clearly I have presented God’s word, it doesn’t do the job.

What is the truth doing? What is the truth doing to those who receive it?

The truth separates man from his sins, from his hereditary and cultivated tendencies to wrongdoing. {RC 114.4}

We are in a habit of wrongdoing. The truth comes along to us and says, “You are doing wrong.” The gospel is applied. Righteousness by faith is applied under this beautiful truth. As we settle into that truth, it does something to us. It separates me from my hereditary and cultivated tendencies that are entrenched in my system. It separates me from them to do God’s will. Don’t we know this experience? Who’s entering into this experience? How many? As God’s word is being proclaimed to show his will in reference to the doing of the wrong and the right, how do people react to that? Do they want to hold onto what they are used to, their cultivated and hereditary tendencies?

It’s more comfortable for me to do what I would like to do. And then God, God’s word comes along and says, “here comes the truth,” and it reveals to us where we are on the wrong track, and we go, “oh, that’s too hard because it’s an entrenched condition in my being.”

Christ has promised to send us the Comforter, whose work is to establish the kingdom of God in the soul. When such abundant provisions of mercy, grace, and peace have been made, why do human beings act as if they regarded the truth as a yoke of bondage? It is because the heart has never tasted and seen that the Lord is good. The truth of the Word of God is thought by some to be a fetter. {RC 114.4}

Have you liked that? This is the sermon I preached this last week, “To do what God is telling us to do means to take up a cross.”

Oh, but that’s a fetter. That is a burden! That’s a bondage! That’s what people are describing it. To be followers of the will of God under the reformation messages that come from the Spirit of Prophecy, whether to be dress reform, whether it be health reform, whether it be the message of coming out of the world, whatever that message is, “Ugh, that’s going to extremes.” That’s what people say.

The manner in which they are receiving the presentation of God’s will is their destiny. They are taking sides – on this side of the question or on the other side. This very truth that achieves, that the sins of our hereditary and cultivated tendencies to wrongdoing are to be separated from us. As this is taking place, the people are making their choices, “No, this is going to extreme, etcetera.”

So today many refuse to put their will on the side of God’s will. They refuse to conform their lives to the great standard of righteousness. They have educated and trained their God-given intellect to make of none effect the law of Jehovah, treating it as a code of moral embarrassment, a yoke of bondage. In the lives of transgressors they see the result of disobedience, yet they will not yield. {RH May 28, 1901, Art. A, par. 5}

I’m getting right down by God’s word here because this is not me saying. This is what God’s word is telling us – that we are meeting this very experience that the preaching of the law under Satan’s sophisticated ways. They have learned how to deceive and how to twist so that the people who are presented with the law of God regard the preaching of the law as bondage. The preaching of God’s will. The foolishness of preaching.

The people are arraying themselves on one side of the question or the other, and we are seeing it in the written word, as it is revealed to us. Have you come across people and has it been in your own experience?

“Oh, that particular reform is too much.” Hmm?

I have to make a decision. I have to respond and settle into the truth as it is given, or I settle into resistance to it. That’s where we find ourselves today. Over the history, Seventh Day Adventists have been deluded into a liberal mentality and the true strict obedience to God’s will has been argued into a state of doesn’t matter.

“Just believe in Jesus. You’ll be right. Jesus loves you. Everything’s fine. But you’re not obeying. You’re not doing God’s will and that’s okay, because doing God’s will is a burden. It’s a yolk of bondage.”

That’s how Satan has managed to do it. Don’t forget what Jesus said, “That in the last days” in Matthew 24 – if it were possible, the very elect could be deceived.

That’s how it happens. We are watching it around us and we are not recognizing it. I’m praying that God will illuminate our mind here today, as we read on. There is one company that stands stiffly for the truth. Standing stiffly for the truth, because the truth is unbending. The truth is what it is. It’s God’s will. There’s one company that stands on that platform of truth.

There is another company that is under the era by choice. They choose not to follow that, which has been taught clearly under the three angels’ messages in detail. They do not want to place themselves under all those doctrines.

How did these two companies come into formation?

Marvelous beyond expression is the blindness of the people of this generation. {GC 561.1}

Which generation is she talking about? Not this one, not ours now. She’s talking about the generation in which she was living.

Marvelous beyond expression is the blindness of the people of this generation. Thousands reject the word of God as unworthy of belief and with eager confidence receive the deceptions of Satan. Skeptics and scoffers denounce the bigotry of those who contend for the faith of prophets and apostles, and they divert themselves by holding up to ridicule the solemn declarations of the Scriptures concerning Christ and the plan of salvation, and the retribution to be visited upon the rejecters of the truth. They affect great pity for minds so narrow, weak, and superstitious as to acknowledge the claims of God and obey the requirements of His law. {GC 561.1}

Haven’t you heard this? Haven’t you seen it? They are regarded as bigotry.

“You are trying to uphold the pure law and you’re just bigoted. That’s just, you think you are the only ones that have that?”

How many times have I heard that language? “You think you’re the only ones? There’s plenty out there as well like you.” No, they’re not.

The majority today have been deceived in a frame of thinking that makes of little effect. All the details that have been firmly established as a platform of truth by the true pioneers of this message. It goes on to say, they look upon you as weak and narrow-minded. They manifest as much assurance as if indeed. They had made a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell as if they had enacted an impossible. They had erected an impossible, impenetrable barrier between themselves and the vengeance of God.

What’s that? An impenetrable barrier. “Oh, have I watched this? Oh, have I seen this?” Whatever you show you can’t penetrate anymore.

Once upon a time when I was starting in the ministry, I could penetrate with the word of God. They went, “oh yeah,” and the time has come now that the very things that I have been preaching, that they once believed, they turn against it because Satan has deceived them.

That’s what we are looking at today. They ridiculed people like us as narrow-minded. Few of you, you’re too narrow-minded. “Come on, widen your horizons.” These are the language that comes from these people, but they have settled in a position that cannot be penetrated. What we are looking at is people who have put the barrier up against the pure truth. It’s a barrier that they have put. You have put it there. You want to attract them to the truth, but they’ve put a barrier there and it’s impenetrable. That’s where we’re standing today.

The consequence of this response to the preaching of the pure word and by those who are doing what we just read.

The angel with the writer’s ink horn is to place a mark upon the foreheads of all who are separated from sin and sinners, and the destroying angel follows this angel (Letter 12, 1886). {4BC 1161.5}

You will discern between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not. The angel under the message of the gathering of the jewels; as the jewels are gathered, the faithful ones are sealed – who have separated themselves from sin and sinners. Those sinners have come to a point of a choice. They have barrier that they have erected to the pure truth is impenetrable. Those of us who decide to be under that truth, the era is impenetrable. We have come to a point of no return. We are living in this time.

The consequence is because this truth separates us from sin and we proclaim what is the sin, and we live in harmony with the right, the others who have taken their stand are looking upon us and saying, tin soldiers. You’re all following that one man.” That’s what they’re doing. That one man isn’t just following the pioneers. That’s all. That’s the reality. We are under a terrible blight of trying to work our way through our human relationships with these people because we love them. Don’t we?

No amount of ministry in truth can help them because they’ve erected a barrier. Why have they erected a barrier? Why? We’ve already seen a little of that.

There are many among professed Christians today who would decide that Daniel was too particular, and would pronounce him narrow and bigoted. They consider the matter of eating and drinking as of too little consequence to require such a decided stand—one involving the probable sacrifice of every earthly advantage. {SL 19.4}

To be faithful to God, we might have to sacrifice every earthly advantage and that’s what people don’t want to do.

But those who reason thus will find in the day of judgment that they turned from God’s express requirements and set up their own opinion as a standard of right and wrong. {SL 19.4}

What are they doing? The requirements of God are replaced by what? Their own opinions. Their own opinion as regarding the will of God.

…their own opinion as a standard of right and wrong. They will find that what seemed to them unimportant was not so regarded of God. {SL 19.4}

Oh, how many times I’ve met this among Seventh Day Adventists and among those who’ve been with us?

It’s horrifying to see that we are making too much of the dress reform. You know, “They’re going too far. That’s just not necessary.” But God’s word plainly says it, that it’s unimportant. It’s not so important to go down to this little detail that God has plainly stated through the SP.

Remember the minutiae? Little detail. We start to say, “that little detail is uncomfortable for me.” Remember, it’s a cross. “Now I’m not going to carry that cross, but I’m still going to believe in God.” Oh, that makes my heart ache. They say, “I know what I believe. I’m not going your way. I still believe in God.”

His requirements should be sacredly obey. Those who accept and obey one of his precepts because it is convenient to do so. So they’re happy to accept certain things which are convenient to do so while they reject another, because it’s observance would require a sacrifice. {SL 19.4}

They reject that certain one. They lower the standard of right. By their example, lead others to lightly regard the holy law of God. Thus saith the Lord is to be our rule in all things.

Can you see here? They will obey part of the way, but according to their opinion, “Don’t go any further. That goes too far.” That’s where we stand today, brother and sisters. They want to cling to their own opinion.

•  Timothy 3:5 -They still want to be God’s people.

2 Timothy 3:5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

Now we’ve come right around to, “you will discern between the righteous and the wicked,” people who have a form of godliness but deny the power that helps them to change to sacrifice for obedience to God’s detail, the minutiae even, they come to the point where their position on that side of the question causes you and me to say, because for certain it’s written there from such turn away.

“Oh, that doesn’t sound nice either. To turn away from our friends who are arguing the point with me as I’m standing on the pure doctrine of original Adventism? To turn away from them? Oh no, I’ve got to be kind to them. I’ve got to spend time with them. All that sort of thing. No, from such turn away.”

That’s what God’s word is saying in these last days. What does God do with people who, because their opinion is crossed and because they don’t want to sacrifice, they’re prepared to go some of the way but not fully? You can see them partial death reform, partial this and partial that. What will God do with them?

How do we relate to them from God’s viewpoint?

Remember Satan is deceiving people. He’s worked out a fine art of doing it, and we’ve just described that. It talks about how Satan’s lying wonders affect them it says in verse 9.

2 Thessalonians 2:10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

What will God do with those people? He’s a loving God. He doesn’t want to drive them insane. If he was going to continue to push them, they would go insane because they don’t want it. Therefore, what will he do?

2 Thessalonians 2:11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.

That they should believe a lie. God is very kind. If somebody is on the wrong side of the question and they’ve put up a barrier, so that they can no longer submit to this, God says, “Fine, you go your way. I will let you be deceived and enjoy yourself.” This is the understanding that we get from God’s word.

How God works to try and help the people if they don’t respond how he works towards them?

Ezekiel 14:1-5

-He sends them strong delusions. In which way does he send them strong delusions?

Ezekiel 14:1 Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me, and sat before me. 2 And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, 3 Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be enquired of at all by them? 4 Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols; 5 That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols.

Here is a servant of God. They come and want to get some answers, and he knows full well. God speaks to him, “They’ve set their idols. If you give them the truth they are going to go wild at you. Answer them according to what they want to hear. Don’t say a word against what they are doing.”

Amos 5:10 They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.

That’s the position that we are in today. Isn’t it true? If you were to unveil the wrong actions of people, they hate you for it. When we are in such a situation and they’re on that side of the question, they hate him that rebuketh in the gate. They abhor him that speaketh uprightly. What is the action for this person then?

Amos 5:13 Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.

That’s our time. We are going to be separated from sin and sinners. We are separated from the sins and we still have to live with them. If you are prudent, you are not going to spoil their fun. Only the ones that really are prepared to sacrifice everything can you speak to.

The other ones, no. Don’t say a word. If they come to you as a servant of God, give them what they want. They’ve put the barrier up. Don’t think that you can help them. This is a very important thing here.

The conclusion of our meditation

What does Sister White write about the fact that they come to the servant of God and God says to the servant, “They’ve got their idols in their heart.” What is this?

Since the rejection of the first message, a sad change has taken place in the churches. As truth is spurned, error is received and cherished. Love for God, and faith in his word, have grown cold. The churches have grieved the Spirit of the Lord, and it has been in a great measure withdrawn. The words of the prophet Ezekiel are fearfully applicable: “Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart…Men may not bow down to idols of wood and stone, but all who love the things of the world and take pleasure in unrighteousness have set up idols in their hearts. The majority of professed Christians are serving other gods besides the Lord. Pride and luxury are cherished, idols are set up in the sanctuary, and her holy places are polluted. {4SP 237.3}

Have you seen in the Seventh Day church, the drums and the rock music that goes there? The place has been polluted. Oh, I could go on and on. Here is the statement. The Lord is going to answer them according to their idols.

I’ve been asked in the Seventh Day Adventist with some of the music that they have. I know full well where they stand. They say, “What do you say, John? What do you think?”

“Wow. If that’s what you love, go ahead.” That’s what I tell them. If that’s the music you love, that’s yours. It’s not my music. “Oh, you are just extreme.” That’s okay. That’s where they stand. They cannot change. They cannot!

Anciently the Lord declared to his servants concerning Israel: “The leaders of this people cause them to err… {4SP 238.1}

In summary then, as we have seen all this now described to us in God’s word, is it wrong to withdraw or to withhold your support to any of their needs created by their worldly practices? Is it wrong to withhold?

They’ve got needs. They’ve got problems and they’re looking for your support and help. Is it wrong for you to help them? Absolutely. You are supporting them. You are enabling them to continue in their wrong way. It is plainly stated to us from such turn away. It is plainly stated that we can not be continually associated with them. We are to be separated from sin and sinners. Let’s heed God’s word. Let’s heed God’s word in reference to dealing with the churches of today that are attached to their idols.

This is now all the summary of how to relate to all this.

Hosea 4:1 Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. 2 By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. 3 Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away. 4 Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another: for thy people are as they that strive with the priest. 5 Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy thy mother. 6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

Then you’re going to see the results of all that.

Hosea 4:17 Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.

There it is. In direct reference.

By continual resistance the sinner places himself where he knows nothing but resistance. When he disregards the calls of God’s mercy, and continues to sow the seeds of unbelief, the dread mark is placed over his doorway, “Ephraim is joined to his idols; let him alone” (Letter 51a, 1895). {4BC 1174.5}

Don’t even bother about trying to win them to Christ. You’re wasting your time. It’s a fact. They have consolidated their position. This is where we stand today. Ephraim is joined to his idols; let him alone. This fearful declaration was already given in Sister White’s time.

Every time you turn away your ear and refuse to listen, every time you fail to open the door of your heart, you strengthen yourself in unbelief, and make yourself more and more unwilling to listen to the voice of Him that speaketh, and you diminish your chance of responding to the last appeal of mercy. Be warned by what the Saviour says; for they that were bidden to the supper and refused his invitation were not to taste of the supper. There is a point beyond which forbearance cannot go. Let it not be written of you, “Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone.” {RH September 24, 1985, par. 6}

How did it say? You refuse to listen to the appeals of God’s will. By continually doing that, there comes a point in time where the heart is no longer willing to hear. That’s where we are as with the majority of people today. After how many years from 1893, when Sister White wrote this?

1893

It is a solemn statement that I make to the church, that not one in twenty whose names are registered upon the church books are prepared to close their earthly history – [Not one in twenty in her day, 1893, are prepared.] They are professedly serving God, but they are more earnestly serving mammon. This half-and-half work is a constant denying of Christ, rather than a confessing of Christ. So many have brought into the church their own unsubdued spirit, unrefined; their spiritual taste is perverted by their own immoral, debasing corruptions, symbolizing the world in spirit, in heart, in purpose, confirming themselves in lustful practices, and are full of deception through and through in their professed Christian life. Living as sinners, claiming to be Christians! – [That’s the condition in her day. What’s it like today?] Those who claim to be Christians and will confess Christ should come out from among them and touch not the unclean thing, and be separate….{ChS 41.1}

1893; what is it today? One hundred twenty-nine years down the road with a deterioration that has taken place, everybody recognizes this is not the same thing anymore. It’s so deteriorated that what it says is exactly what we’ve been reading there from such turn away. Come out from that church.

I lay down my pen and lift up my soul in prayer, that the Lord would breathe upon His backslidden people, who are as dry bones, that they may live. The end is near, stealing upon us so stealthily, so imperceptibly, so noiselessly, like the muffled tread of the thief in the night, to surprise the sleepers off guard and unready. May the Lord grant to bring His Holy Spirit upon hearts that are now at ease, that they may no longer sleep as do others, but watch and be sober. {ChS 41.2}

There was still hope for the church at that time. She’s pleading to them. That’s why she didn’t leave the Seventh-day Adventist church, but she left her association with certain people because they were already locked in their wrong way.

Brothers and sisters, we are now standing 129 years since that time. We are in a position where the majority cannot change. They’ve put the barrier up and no matter how kind and nice you are to them, they belittle you for what you believe. That’s the reality.

I do pray that God will give us understanding that just now at the place in which we are standing now, we are in a position.

The eye of God, looking down the ages, was fixed upon the crisis which His people are to meet, when earthly powers shall be arrayed against them. Like the captive exile, they will be in fear of death by starvation or by violence. But the Holy One who divided the Red Sea before Israel, will manifest His mighty power and turn their captivity. “They shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.” Malachi 3:17. If the blood of Christ’s faithful witnesses were shed at this time, it would not, like the blood of the martyrs, be as seed sown to yield a harvest for God. Their fidelity would not be a testimony to convince others of the truth; for the obdurate heart has beaten back the waves of mercy until they return no more. {GC 634.1}

That’s where we’re at today. Very close to that final one. There’s just a final call for God’s faithful people in Babylon to come out. That’s all! The rest of them you can’t convince. May God help us to be aware of our circumstances and relate correctly to those who are on the other side of the question, and relate correctly to each other. Don’t listen to them running down your brother or your sister, because they’ll run down the minister. They will. It’s up to you. Which side of the question do you want to be on?

Amen.