Restraint and Moral Control Destroyed

We are not called upon to enter into controversy with those who hold false theories. Controversy is unprofitable. Christ never entered into it. “It is written,” is the weapon used by the world's Redeemer. Let us keep close to the word. Let us allow the Lord Jesus and His messengers to testify. We know that their testimony is true.MM 97.1

Christ is over all the works of His creation. In the pillar of fire He guided the children of Israel, His eyes seeing past, present, and future. He is to be recognized and honored by all who love God. His commandments are to be reverenced and cherished and obeyed. They are to be the controlling power in the lives of His people.MM 97.2

The tempter comes with the supposition that Christ has removed His seat of honor and power into some unknown region, and that men need no longer to be inconvenienced by exalting His character and obeying His law. Human beings are to be a law unto themselves, he declares. The sophistries he brings in discount and make nothing of God. Restraint and moral control in the human family are destroyed. Restraint upon vice grows more and more feeble. The world loves not, fears not, God. And those who do not love or fear God soon lose all sense of obligation to one another. They are without God and without hope in the world.—Manuscript 92, 1904.MM 97.3