We are amid the perils of the last days, and trying times are before us. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken, that those things that cannot be shaken may remain. Drought, famine, pestilence, earthquakes, casualties by sea and land, will multiply. Life will be unsafe anywhere, only as life is hidden with Christ in God. Now, while the angels are holding the four winds, it is our opportunity to seek the Lord most earnestly.
You do not realize your peril. Nations and people have in different ages separated from God and lost faith in truth, in duty, so that they could not discern man’s eternal responsibility to his God. You are passing over the same ground. You have clung to your idols, and are becoming spiritually benumbed. Whatever it may cost you to recover your faith, you would better deny self and make any sacrifice than live without the presence and favor of God. There is something more to be dreaded by individuals who have had light and knowledge of the truth than drought, famine, or temporal inconveniences. It is a worse thing to lose faith in God, in truth, in duty. It is far worse to choose your own way, to love money, to love those things that minister to selfish gratification and indulgence. It is a terrible thing to imperil the soul’s highest interest for any temporal gain or worldly advantage.
If you, my friend, lose heaven, you lose everything. You cannot afford to fail of receiving the heavenly treasures which are to be given only to those who love God supremely and their neighbor as themselves. Treasures of immortal value will be given only to the self-denying and the pure in heart. Stand before God with a heart cleansed from every idol, a conscience void of offense, and you are prepared for anything. Life or death, trials or sufferings, will not uproot your faith, but make you strong to do and to suffer.
Many have a knowledge of the truth, but it is of no saving value to them unless they practice the truth. It is the ruin of thousands that they are pleased to have close connection with those who have no love for God and for the truth. Uniting with them, binding up with them by secret cords which God and heaven have never devised, will, in the place of making one Christlike and humble, holy, pure, and undefiled, make him, after a time, of the same mind and Spirit as his associates.
I have been permitted to look in upon these secret societies, their feasts, their order, their works, and my prayer has been, “Hide them from my sight forever. Let me not understand more.” One thing I do know, that those who remain in connection with them will be burned up with the bundles of tares, one with them in the last day.
Your eternal interest is hanging in the balance. The longer you associate with these men, the more will you become assimilated to their customs, their Spirit, their practices. The unbelief, the infidelity, which is expressed by them will come to intrude upon your thoughts, and weaken your faith.
Can you, my brother, serve God and Baal at the same time? Can you, for a moment, associate Jesus, the world’s Redeemer, with your gatherings, your councils, your feasts? If Christ is there it is as the Witness was present at the feast of Belshazzar. They who composed the number at that hilarious feast knew not that the eternal God was there. They drank wine and indulged appetite, feasting themselves. Sacred things were profaned. Money was expended freely. They deceived not the God in the midst of them—taking cognizance of every action, listening to their God-dishonoring sentiments. And when revelry was at its height, a bloodless hand came forth and wrote the words of doom upon the wall of that banqueting hall.
Could a child of God, an heir of heaven, be found in such society? The men who drink wine prepare the way for further excess. The tobacco devotee worships an idol, and the Lord speaks—listen, for He speaks to you—”Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you saith the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:17, 18). All the enjoyment you can have in this riotous mirth and in the conversation of these men, unfits you for the study of the Scriptures, for the hour of devotion, for the service of God. What if you should behold Jesus, the world’s Redeemer, in the midst of you—as He certainly is—would there not be a fainting of heart, even with you and your associates? 20MR 286.5
The Lord God of heaven witnessed every form of your ceremonies; His ear heard every pledge, every oath that bound you in unholy bonds to these secret societies. Every tie which you strengthen by continuing with them is binding your soul, body, and Spirit in stronger unholy bonds.
The money paid in to increase their revenue is God’s money, perverted to a wrong use. The tax you pay in your feasts had much better be put into the treasury of God to advance His cause.
There is nothing said or done or even thought that God does not know; nothing can escape His infinite eye. There is a Witness to every thought and word and action of our lives, and that Witness is the Holy One, a sin-hating God. The God of heaven is measuring character and weighing moral worth in the golden balances of the sanctuary. How many in these gatherings of the secret society are weighed and found wanting—wanting in the fruits of a life of piety and heart service! I speak that which I do know. To be found wanting when God, the Creator of heaven and earth, weighs character, is a terrible thing. Christ died for every individual soul of them, that He might draw them to himself. God has made every provision, bestowed every gift, even heaven itself. Having given Jesus, He withholds nothing for the benefit of man. Your mind needs to dwell upon these things.
I address myself to you, Brother Faulkhead. Your soul is in peril. You are insensible to your dangers and your responsibility to God. The price paid for your redemption has bound your individual being up with God. You are His property, whatever course you may decide to pursue. Grave decisions are being made by you. You can never cease to be responsible to him who “so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
God has given you talents, both in faculties and in opportunities. You are to employ these entrusted capabilities in His service. Years are passing into eternity. What are you doing? Are you making returns to God in the improvement and increase of your talents for His service? You must give an account to God for every jot of your influence, for influence is a power for good or for evil. If weighted with the Spirit of truth, you can surround your soul with an atmosphere that will be to those with whom you associate a savor of life unto life. If faithful to God, you will indeed be a colaborer with him. You will be as a branch of the living Vine, vitalized by the nourishment which flows through the parent stock.
God has appointed you your work. You are not to make your temporal business all-absorbing. “Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” God has entrusted you with precious talents to use. You are to trade wisely with the entrusted goods of heaven. Your work is to glorify God. Watch unto prayer. But where is your devotion to God? You have almost divorced yourself from him. In the place of educating yourself by practice how to pray, you are forgetting how to approach God in sincerity and truth, forgetting how to bear your testimony for him. You have no special love for the Bible. You see, not the hidden treasure there. Did you discern its value, you would sell all to buy the field.
