TO WHICH CLASS DO YOU BELONG?
By L. A. Smith
THE religion of Jesus Christ divides the world into two great classes, and only two; and to which one of these a person belongs, is a question determined, not by his church membership, nor by his profession, but by the spirit that he has. “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” Rom. 8:9. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he has another spirit; and there is only one other spirit that he can have. The only other spirit that has ever been manifested, from the first act in opposition to the Spirit of Christ down to the present time, is the spirit of self. The first being who ever had the spirit of self was the devil; and every one since who has had the spirit of self has had the spirit of the devil. The spirit of self got into the Christian church, and produced the papacy. Among the very disciples who followed Christ, the contest began as to who should be the greatest; and in the course of this contest, as it was afterward carried on in the Christian church, one man finally succeeded in exalting himself “above all that is called God, or that is worshiped,” taking the title “pope.” That marked the supreme point of possible self-exaltation; and ever since that was done, the pope has stood as the visible earthly head of the system that has been developed from the working of the spirit of self. That system is the papacy, and is represented wherever the spirit of self is allowed to work. It includes every institution where the self-seeking spirit is exalted, and every person in whom that spirit rules. And this is plainly affirmed in the word of eternal truth; for of the papacy it is written: “All that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Rev. 13:8.12 Every self-serving person is included in that great antichristian system, whose earthly head sits in the Vatican at Rome. Are there any such persons in the Seventh-day Adventist Church? Clearly, it is entirely possible for one to be professedly a believer in the seventh-day Sabbath, the second advent of Christ, and other Seventh-day Adventist doctrines, holding church membership with those who believe these doctrines, and even professedly working to advance the Third Angel’s Message, and yet be actually a part of the papacy. Lucifer had everything but the Spirit of Christ when he became the devil and the actual head of the papal system. It is through the avenue of a wrong spirit that wrong doctrines come into the church. The “damnable heresies” were brought into the Christian church by men who sought to draw away disciples after themselves. Every false doctrine has its place in the temple of self-exaltation. The church that had been Christian became Babylon the Great, and it became necessary for Christians to separate themselves from it. But in time the same spirit crept into the separated body, and produced the same antichristian results. Great Babylon began to have daughters. And the process of separating from a church that had become dominated by the spirit of self-exaltation, forming a new body proclaiming God’s truth, and finally of falling under the domination of the same spirit, by which a new daughter was born to Babylon, went on through the centuries down to the rise of the Third Angel’s Message. Are you a Seventh-day Adventist, a church-member in “good and regular standing,” acquainted with the doctrines, able to give the argument, and perhaps preaching it to public congregations? Do not flatter yourself any on this account. The question is, Do you have the Spirit of Christ? If not, you are only less consistent and less honest than the one who openly acknowledges membership in the papal church.