Counsel to Our Remnant People

I counsel you who may meet with objections to the claims of the testimonies given for the remnant, to regard a proper balance between the trivial and the great, between that which is difficult of understanding and that which is plain. Here are clear, guiding principles:AGP 376.2

“You need not go in uncertainty and doubt. Satan is at hand to suggest a variety of doubts; but if you will open your eyes in faith, you will find sufficient evidence for belief. But God will never remove from any man all causes for doubts. Those who love to dwell in the atmosphere of doubt and questioning unbelief, can have the unenviable privilege. God gives sufficient evidence for the candid mind to believe; but he who turns from the weight of evidence because there are a few things which he cannot make plain to his finite understanding, will be left in the cold, chilling atmosphere of unbelief and questioning doubts, and will make shipwreck of faith.” Testimonies for the Church 4:232, 233.

“Those who train the mind to seize upon everything which they can use as a peg to hang a doubt upon, and suggest these thoughts to other minds, will always find occasion to doubt. They will question and criticize everything that arises in the unfolding of truth, criticize the work and position of others, criticize every branch of the work in which they have not themselves a part. They will feed upon the errors and mistakes and faults of others, ‘until,’ said the angel, ‘the Lord Jesus shall rise up from His mediatorial work in the heavenly sanctuary, and shall clothe Himself with the garments of vengeance, and surprise them at their unholy feast; and they will find themselves unprepared for the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ Their taste has been so perverted that they would be inclined to criticize even the table of the Lord in His kingdom.” Testimonies for the Church 5:690.

The words of Moses, linking blessing with obedience and disaster with disobedience, were predictive. They were spoken when Israel was just beginning her national history. The future of the nation was marked with the correlation of prosperity and obedience, and of ultimate captivity and destruction following persistent disobedience. The calamity came sooner in Israel, who rejected the counsels of all her prophets, than in Judah, whose day of doom was repeatedly postponed because of occasional reformations.AGP 377.1