REVEREND BLASPHEMERS by G. W. Amadon

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 1, 1860

REVEREND BLASPHEMERS.

By G. W. Amadon

ThE Apostle Paul in 2 Tim. iii, 1-5, has given us a bird's eye view of the state of the popular churches in the "last days." His own words are: "For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such TURN AWAY." See also Amos vi, 3-7.

Mark a few of the specifications in this startling portrait of apostate Christianity. Paul says they will be "blasphemers," "false accusers," "fierce," &c. The word rendered false accusers here is diabolos, and is the same expression which is found in Rev. xx, 2: "And he laid hold on that old Serpent, which is the Devil (Gr., diabolos), and Satan, and bound him a thousand years." "Diabolos" is translated Devil in the New Testament thirty-five times. This may seem like pretty strong language to apply to a religious people, but it must not be taken in too rigid a sense—it does not mean that such are really Devils, but only like the Devil or devilish. It is of the same import as a declaration in the Apocalypse: "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of Devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird."

That professors now-a-days have got to be fierce is sufficiently proved from the desperate and frenzied manner in which they often attack the truth. It is no uncommon thing for some to boil with rage when we insist on the claims of the fourth commandment.

This only goes to prove such have arrived at the state which Paul long since predicted. That they are becoming blasphemers, and that too in the most terrible sense of the word, we think is very easily proved. We will here give a few blasphemous expressions which have fallen from the lips of popular ministers, for it is clerical blasphemy of which we speak.

About two years since while Bro. Loughborough was lecturing in the village of Allegan, this State, his discourses became the topic of much conversation in the place and thereabout. Said a man who was somewhat interested, to a minister, "We are having some lectures over in the village on the prophecies, have you heard them?" "Poh!" said the minister, "those old prophecies are all fulfilled long ago. You and I have nothing more to do with them." "Well," said our friend, "he is also lecturing on the law of God, and says that the seventh day is the Sabbath, and that we ought to keep it." "Does he," retorted the minister, "well he lies like h—ll." "But," said our interested friend, "he brings Bible which seems to prove it, and I don't know but he is correct." "Well," said the minister, "he lies like h—ll if he says so," and this was about all the satisfaction he could get from him. This man was a Methodist preacher.

With this agrees what Eld. B., another minister in Vermont said in an inflammatory speech against the law of God, the ten commandments. He called it "a crickety, miserable old thunder and lightning law, which was always a curse to man," and which said he "is dead and buried and don't deserve a grave stone." I once knew an infidel who while riding along the road at the height of a thunder storm dared "the Almighty to strike his horses dead!" and so shocked was his wicked companion that he afterwards declared "the hair stood up on his head;" but which was the worst the infidel or this minister?

Akin to these are a few remarks of another minister, a part of which I heard with my own ears. Said he in a prayer at the close of an effort against the truth, "O Lord God of eternity, have mercy on those who have gone away from their father's house to follow old women's whims!" and a hearty "amen" from one of his brethren showed with what gusto this irreverent fling was appreciated. The same individual while "resisting the truth" at the house of a brother declared, that as for our faith there was "neither head nor tail to it," and in speaking of the chart said that we had "heads and horns, skunks and woodchucks so mixed up that we ourselves didn't know anything about what we did believe." If this is not blasphemy, and a perfect fulfillment of Paul's words, in the name of enlightened reason what would be? The brother to whom this furious invective was made calmly reproved him for "reviling" the "things of the Spirit of God," although he was his kinsman according to the flesh.

When I embraced the truth eight years ago I wrote to a Presbyterian minister in Ohio, a former friend of mine, asking his advice about what I had heard. And what was the answer? Why, he said he was tempted "to give a laugh a yard and a half long," and that he thought "one more letter like that would give the mail carrier the cholera." And in speaking of the advent and Sabbath question he said, "Bah!—dishwater! who did ever hear of such a silly thing—so it has come to this that a man must believe that the world is going to come to an end, and that the seventh day is the Sabbath or be damned and sent to hell in less than no time." But he did alter his tone enough before he got through to tell me that the "world was round," and the "seventh part of time" was all the Sabbath required, and that if I didn't "have sense enough to keep clear of such heresy" I had better stay away from the meetings. But the sequel shows that I lacked the "sense," and I am now not sorry for it, for I think more than ever that "that which is highly approved among men, is abomination in the sight of God."

I will not multiply more testimony concerning those who blaspheme against God and fight his people. We are not better than our Master. If they called him Beelzebub, much more those of his household. The Scriptures declare that we "shall be taken up in the lips of the talkers," become "the song of the drunkards," "a derision to our neighbors," and be "accounted as the filth and offscouring of all things." In this we may truly rejoice when all manner of evil is spoken against us lying for Christ's sake. This with the grace of God we can bear, but when men—professed ministers of Jesus Christ—utter such bold blasphemies against the truth, and so against the God of truth, who that has got any love for God and zeal for his truth will hold silence? If men in their hot-headed zeal dare utter such maledications against high heaven they must expect to hear of it. Truly, as the sacred writer says, "A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, the priests bear rule by their means, and my people love to have it so, and what will ye do in the end thereof?"

Brethren, let us "be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." Paul says, "Do all things with good will, without murmurings and disputing; that ye may be blameless and uncorrupt, spotless children of God, amidst a crooked and twisted race; among whom shine ye forth as luminaries in the world."