Posted by Steven Benjamin on April 11, 2009, 6:15 pm, in reply to "Re: Shepherds Rod: TRACT No. 3 (pt 11)"
What stronger evidence is needed to convince oneself that the watchmen have lost the spiritual eyesight which John the Baptist and the apostles had? Tragically true indeed the sharp indictment: "Sleeping preachers preaching to a sleeping people. " -- Testimonies, Vol. 2, p. 337.
Discerning "when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism," that they would later crucify his Lord John said to them, "O generation of vipers who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance. " Matt. 3 :7, 8. Thus he exposed and thwarted the devil's move to bring in the tares at that time. For well did he know that if the tares once got in and then he try to weed them out, he would uproot the wheat with them.
And then during the time of the apostles, Peter, as a faithful watchman of the church, detecting the devil's essaying again to come in with his bad seed, said to the guilty: "Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?. . . And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things. . . . And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife,. . . came in. And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much. . . . Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost. " Acts 5:3, 5, 7, 8, 10.
The fact that the congregation, too, has failed to discern the devil's sowing his seed among them, twice over vindicates the indictment: "Sleeping preachers, preaching to a sleeping people" (Testimonies, Vol. 2, p. 337), and proves that the entire church, both the ministry and the laity, is sound asleep, in fulfillment of the words of Christ: "Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins,. . . and five of them were wise, and five were foolish. . . . But. . . while the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. " Matt. 25:1-5.
The evil of allowing the devil freely to sow the tares among the wheat, has existed in the Christian church since the passing of the apostles, with the result that whenever the Lord has sent a message to His people, the tares amongst them have straightway (at the instructions of the leaders) raised their hands and voted out whoever would listen to the messenger and obey the message. Thus time and again selling their birthright for less than a mess of pottage, the professed people of God have lost out, and still the church has never learned the tragic lesson!
"O ye house of Israel," warns the Lord, "let it suffice you of all your abominations, in that ye have brought into My sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in My sanctuary, to pollute it, even My house. " Ezek. 44:6, 7.
But ever to the faithful, as the tares have crowded them out of their midst, the Lord's comforting assurance has been: "Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets. " Luke 6:22, 23.
As the period since the passing of the apostles has been the wheat and tare-growing time, and as, moreover, the Laodicean church is the last of the seven sections of the Christian church in which are commingled the wheat and the tares we must learn the answer to the question:
Which Is The Laodicean Church?
Laodicea may be infallibly recognized amidst the many "isms" of Christendom by the work she is doing -- declaring the judgment. Indeed, this mark of identification is pointed out by the very name Laodicea, compounded of the two Greek words lao and dekei, the one meaning "people," also "speak," the other meaning "judgment," the two in one meaning the people declaring judgment. The church therefore, which declares, "Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come" (Rev. 14:7), is evidently the one called Laodicea. And it is almost as well known outside Seventh-day Adventist circles as within, that the Seventh-day Adventist church is endeavoring to carry the judgment message of Revelation 14:7, and is therefore unchallenged in her claim to the title, Laodicea.
Plainly, then, the names of "the seven churches" (representing the successive sections of the Christian church, of which the Laodicean is the last) are not "just names. " Take as another example the name of the sixth, "Philadelphia. " Its meaning, "brotherly love," being a misnomer of the spiritual condition of any other church organization in the entire Christian era, implicitly fits, however, the state of charity common and singular to the sixth -- the Millerite church.
Being the one shining example of a church never guilty of thwarting or trying to thwart in any way her members in their exercise of their inalienable right to investigate and to accept for themselves whatever their conscience bid them investigate and accept, she alone contributed nothing to the grievous condition calling forth the scripture: "Hear the Word of the Lord, ye that tremble at His word; your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for My name's sake, said, Let the Lord be glorified: but He shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed" (Isa. 66:5) in the
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