Dangers Increasing

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Mar 16, 1905

Dangers Increasing

WITH an emphasis which is being constantly increased by terrible revelations of evil on every hand there rings in our ears the prophetic statement, “In the last days perilous times shall come.” This warning also has its application to the experiences of those who profess the truth. Not only are the times perilous on account of the almost overwhelming tide of lawlessness, the open and undisguised manifestations of the spirit of rebellion against God and his law, but not less so on account of that insidious spirit of doubt and questioning, that assertion of the apparently legitimate right of investigation of all revealed truth which is in reality a spirit of rebellion against the acceptance of a revelation not to be dominated by human reason, which easily leads to the repudiation of well-established and long-accepted truths under the plea of the individual right of private judgment. There is the false idea of the authority of the church to bind the conscience and to enforce submission to a creed which the true believer will not accept, but there is the authority of the truth as a revelation from God to which the human mind must submit. There is a vast difference between the voice of divine authority and the voice of human authority. The former is in the Word of God, the latter is in the human creeds. The truth will bear the closest investigation, but the authoritative interpretation of the Scriptures through the accredited gift of the Spirit is the check and the correction upon that restless speculation which would unsettle all the foundations of truth. Beware of that professed and loudly asserted liberty which leads the mind into captivity to Satan rather than into the true freedom of Christ. There are revealed truths which are not to be established by human reasoning. There is the peril of thorough self-assertion in a certain kind of investigation of established truth. The enemy adapts his temptations to all classes of minds. Those who have known and believed the truth need to remember that “in the last days perilous times shall come,” and they are surely here. No anchor will hold which is constantly being pulled up to examine the flukes. “These [three] messages were represented to me as an anchor to the people of God.” Those who have known and yet reject these messages will drift upon the rocks of infidelity.