He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.
God patiently sends many merciful warnings again and again and does not keep silence forever, even when judgment against wrong is not carried out at once. To harden the neck is to repeatedly reject that correction and refuse light, clinging to one's own choice and pride and love of the world, answering only with vague admissions while continuing in known sin and refusing to confess specifically and forsake it. Such resistance benumbs the conscience, destroys power to discern right, closes the only door for hearing counsel, and leaves the person captive to delusion and unfit for God's service. When forbearance ends the destruction comes suddenly and unexpectedly, with no second probation and no chance to repent or redeem the past, and God will be true to His word in doing it. The only hope is to wake up and repent while it is called today, with prompt thorough confession of specific sins, entire change, earnest reform and yielding the heart to Christ, for no one will be lifted out of sin without struggle against self.
Meaning of the Warning
Being often reproved means God in earnest patiently bears long with backsliding people and mercifully sends many warnings and reproofs again and again, and He will not always keep silence. Even though sentence against evil is often not executed speedily, He will not punish any people until He has first warned them and tested the effect of His warnings. Those warnings test the effect of light and require an entire change to overcome selfishness and self-will and love of self and to conform the will to the will of God.
They come through His servants, and if rejected He may speak through judgments, purifying fires, and greater afflictions. Being often reproved means being confronted with definite acts and actual sins, with clear light repeatedly given about marked defects of character such as unholy ambition and selfishness over wages and about selfishness, greed, fraud, and dishonest practices woven into His work. Long time sufficient to make decided change is given to cherish the light and walk in it.
Hardening the neck means repeatedly rejecting correction and refusing light and mercy, stubbornly refusing to change. It is refusing to receive what is not in harmony with the mind, hardening in own choice and clinging to scientific theories, rejecting the humbling of heart and reconversion offered. It is holding to love of the world and pride of heart and fearing to cut loose from worldly friends and relatives, being led through their tempting pleasures to stiffen the neck against reproof, and making the Spirit's rebukes an obstacle instead of accepting mercy and truth.
It also means answering only with general admissions without leading out in specific confession and forsaking, trying to appease conscience while continuing in impure thoughts and defiling sins. It means continuing to justify retaining unjust gain with excuses and subterfuges, refusing the light instead of reforming. Safety requires decided sacrifice, resisting the devil, breaking pride and folly, yielding the heart's affections to be purified, and turning to God.
Such hardening leaves no strength to withstand temptation so the person falls again and again under temptation. Failing to cherish the light brings darkness, weakens for service, benumbs the often-violated conscience, and destroys ability to discern the voice of the True Shepherd from that of a stranger. Despising reproof closes the only door through which counsel and warning can be heard, leaving the person in the snare of the enemy, left to the results of his own course, left to believe the strong delusions of Satan and be led captive at his will by pleasing, flattering deceptions, persisting in unbelief and resistance to the Spirit.
Those hardened become unfit for service in God's cause and harm the community in which they live, for they miss reverence for God, the first lesson of wisdom. They do not prosper and their prayers are not heard while they persist in selfishness, greed, fraud, and dishonest practices. Those who come under their influence lose spiritual discernment, so there can be no safe union with them.
The destruction threatened is sudden and unexpected, coming at an unexpected moment when forbearance ends and it is forever too late. Though sentence is delayed, God is in earnest and will be true to His word in doing what He has said. His long patience reaches its limit and ends, and His wrath goes out in sudden ruin that cannot be cured, which no earthly power can stop or reverse, casting down even those He highly favored and exalted.
Without remedy means passed beyond the time of mercy with no second probation. It means no chance for repentance and no chance to redeem the past, left under retributive justice. The only hope is to repent while it is called today, for there is peril in delay.
Even when repentance is accepted and transgression pardoned through Jesus, the harmful influence of the past evil course upon others cannot be entirely undone or counteracted. Repeated indulgence in intemperance, smoking, and tampering with drink and persisting in low gratifications corrupts the principles of the soul until evil tastes and love of coarseness and coarse habits become part of the nature. Stain gathers upon stain and degrades the whole being like leprosy, and God will not entrust His Holy Spirit to those who work against its deep inward earnest working, so ruin comes suddenly beyond remedy.
People Warned and Response
The warning sounds like a trumpet blast against a peace-and-safety attitude, calling every church to wake up and to seek the Lord while He may be found and call upon Him while He is near, with fasting and confession and true repentance of heart. The only hope of salvation is to repent while it is called today, because there is peril in delay. God bears long with backsliding people and keeps calling them to repentance, but those often reproved who harden the neck and persist in unbelief and resistance will be left to the results of their own course.
In the great day of atonement the church must not stand in its own light and refuse to humble the heart, but must heed counsel and regard repeated warnings. It must profit by the record of the children of Israel, who failed through unbelief and perished in impenitence. Escape requires prompt and thorough confession of definite acts and actual sins with forsaking, being born again and thoroughly converted with a reformed life and fruits of righteousness. It requires earnest reform with humble prayer and leaning on God as sufficiency, remaining true to principle and reflecting Christ in character. It requires decided sacrifice, resisting the devil, breaking pride and folly, and yielding the heart's affections to Christ to be purified and fitted for immortality, and turning to God.
No one can expect to be lifted out of sin without effort and struggle against self, for those who persist in evil, reject the means and privileges provided, and keep to evil's ground will perish and be suddenly lost with no remedy. The warning is directed to workers connected with the printing office in Battle Creek who weave selfishness into God's work, to whom clear light has repeatedly come about marked defects of character such as unholy ambition and selfishness over wages, with long time sufficient to make decided change. Those who instead of reforming continue to justify retaining unjust gain with excuses and subterfuges prove untrustworthy, withdraw divine approval, and disqualify themselves from molding and leading His cause, meeting sudden ruin beyond rescue.
It applies to those given light and messages of warning who will not receive them but exalt themselves. After knowing the way of righteousness they turn from it, follow pernicious ways, allure others with swelling words of vanity, promise liberty while themselves servants of corruption, and try to deceive if possible the very elect. Their intent will be revealed, though there would be rejoicing if they turned square about. It warns a man to whom many warnings were mercifully sent, who refuses what is not in harmony with his own mind and hardens his neck in his own choice, clinging to his scientific theories. By rejecting the humbling of heart and reconversion that would have made him stand as the Lord's chosen physician, he brings himself under the threatened end, those who come under his influence lose spiritual discernment, and God's people cannot safely unite with him.
It warns the young man who despises his father's authority and restraint, that if he continues rejecting mercy and correction destruction will come unexpectedly, though sincere repentance and conversion can bring forgiveness through Jesus. It warns people who reject the evidence of Christ and the light He gives and make rebukes an obstacle, who continue unchecked on a downward course to a sudden end. It warns rulers, religious teachers and others who could have studied the prophecies to learn whether they concerned their own time and conduct but failed to do so, ending in eternal loss. It warns those persisting in low gratifications and selfish, greedy, fraudulent and dishonest practices, who will not prosper and whose prayers will not be heard. It warns one convinced of the truth but holding to love of the world and pride and fearing to cut loose from friends and relatives, who is led by Satan through professed friends and their tempting pleasures to stubbornly resist truth and stiffen the neck.
Repeated indulgence in intemperance, smoking, and tampering with drink corrupts the soul's principles until evil tastes and coarse habits become part of the nature and stain gathers upon stain degrading the whole being like leprosy. Even when repentance is accepted and transgression pardoned, the harmful influence of that past evil course upon others cannot be entirely undone or counteracted. Quoting the verse over Sister Lyman when she was set aside, to ask who goes next and to press that there may be hope today but it is gone tomorrow, creating a fearful excitement, is not of the Lord. It belongs to a hurried, fanatical, deceptive spirit with wrong burdens and exercises, which ministers standing in counsel and understanding their duty should check at once.
God patiently sends many merciful warnings again and again and does not keep silence forever, even when judgment against wrong is not carried out at once. To harden the neck is to repeatedly reject that correction and refuse light, clinging to one's own choice and pride and love of the world, answering only with vague admissions while continuing in known sin and refusing to confess specifically and forsake it. Such resistance benumbs the conscience, destroys power to discern right, closes the only door for hearing counsel, and leaves the person captive to delusion and unfit for God's service. When forbearance ends the destruction comes suddenly and unexpectedly, with no second probation and no chance to repent or redeem the past, and God will be true to His word in doing it. The only hope is to wake up and repent while it is called today, with prompt thorough confession of specific sins, entire change, earnest reform and yielding the heart to Christ, for no one will be lifted out of sin without struggle against self.
Meaning of the Warning
Being often reproved means God in earnest patiently bears long with backsliding people and mercifully sends many warnings and reproofs again and again, and He will not always keep silence. Even though sentence against evil is often not executed speedily, He will not punish any people until He has first warned them and tested the effect of His warnings. Those warnings test the effect of light and require an entire change to overcome selfishness and self-will and love of self and to conform the will to the will of God.
They come through His servants, and if rejected He may speak through judgments, purifying fires, and greater afflictions. Being often reproved means being confronted with definite acts and actual sins, with clear light repeatedly given about marked defects of character such as unholy ambition and selfishness over wages and about selfishness, greed, fraud, and dishonest practices woven into His work. Long time sufficient to make decided change is given to cherish the light and walk in it.
Hardening the neck means repeatedly rejecting correction and refusing light and mercy, stubbornly refusing to change. It is refusing to receive what is not in harmony with the mind, hardening in own choice and clinging to scientific theories, rejecting the humbling of heart and reconversion offered. It is holding to love of the world and pride of heart and fearing to cut loose from worldly friends and relatives, being led through their tempting pleasures to stiffen the neck against reproof, and making the Spirit's rebukes an obstacle instead of accepting mercy and truth.
It also means answering only with general admissions without leading out in specific confession and forsaking, trying to appease conscience while continuing in impure thoughts and defiling sins. It means continuing to justify retaining unjust gain with excuses and subterfuges, refusing the light instead of reforming. Safety requires decided sacrifice, resisting the devil, breaking pride and folly, yielding the heart's affections to be purified, and turning to God.
Such hardening leaves no strength to withstand temptation so the person falls again and again under temptation. Failing to cherish the light brings darkness, weakens for service, benumbs the often-violated conscience, and destroys ability to discern the voice of the True Shepherd from that of a stranger. Despising reproof closes the only door through which counsel and warning can be heard, leaving the person in the snare of the enemy, left to the results of his own course, left to believe the strong delusions of Satan and be led captive at his will by pleasing, flattering deceptions, persisting in unbelief and resistance to the Spirit.
Those hardened become unfit for service in God's cause and harm the community in which they live, for they miss reverence for God, the first lesson of wisdom. They do not prosper and their prayers are not heard while they persist in selfishness, greed, fraud, and dishonest practices. Those who come under their influence lose spiritual discernment, so there can be no safe union with them.
The destruction threatened is sudden and unexpected, coming at an unexpected moment when forbearance ends and it is forever too late. Though sentence is delayed, God is in earnest and will be true to His word in doing what He has said. His long patience reaches its limit and ends, and His wrath goes out in sudden ruin that cannot be cured, which no earthly power can stop or reverse, casting down even those He highly favored and exalted.
Without remedy means passed beyond the time of mercy with no second probation. It means no chance for repentance and no chance to redeem the past, left under retributive justice. The only hope is to repent while it is called today, for there is peril in delay.
Even when repentance is accepted and transgression pardoned through Jesus, the harmful influence of the past evil course upon others cannot be entirely undone or counteracted. Repeated indulgence in intemperance, smoking, and tampering with drink and persisting in low gratifications corrupts the principles of the soul until evil tastes and love of coarseness and coarse habits become part of the nature. Stain gathers upon stain and degrades the whole being like leprosy, and God will not entrust His Holy Spirit to those who work against its deep inward earnest working, so ruin comes suddenly beyond remedy.
People Warned and Response
The warning sounds like a trumpet blast against a peace-and-safety attitude, calling every church to wake up and to seek the Lord while He may be found and call upon Him while He is near, with fasting and confession and true repentance of heart. The only hope of salvation is to repent while it is called today, because there is peril in delay. God bears long with backsliding people and keeps calling them to repentance, but those often reproved who harden the neck and persist in unbelief and resistance will be left to the results of their own course.
In the great day of atonement the church must not stand in its own light and refuse to humble the heart, but must heed counsel and regard repeated warnings. It must profit by the record of the children of Israel, who failed through unbelief and perished in impenitence. Escape requires prompt and thorough confession of definite acts and actual sins with forsaking, being born again and thoroughly converted with a reformed life and fruits of righteousness. It requires earnest reform with humble prayer and leaning on God as sufficiency, remaining true to principle and reflecting Christ in character. It requires decided sacrifice, resisting the devil, breaking pride and folly, and yielding the heart's affections to Christ to be purified and fitted for immortality, and turning to God.
No one can expect to be lifted out of sin without effort and struggle against self, for those who persist in evil, reject the means and privileges provided, and keep to evil's ground will perish and be suddenly lost with no remedy. The warning is directed to workers connected with the printing office in Battle Creek who weave selfishness into God's work, to whom clear light has repeatedly come about marked defects of character such as unholy ambition and selfishness over wages, with long time sufficient to make decided change. Those who instead of reforming continue to justify retaining unjust gain with excuses and subterfuges prove untrustworthy, withdraw divine approval, and disqualify themselves from molding and leading His cause, meeting sudden ruin beyond rescue.
It applies to those given light and messages of warning who will not receive them but exalt themselves. After knowing the way of righteousness they turn from it, follow pernicious ways, allure others with swelling words of vanity, promise liberty while themselves servants of corruption, and try to deceive if possible the very elect. Their intent will be revealed, though there would be rejoicing if they turned square about. It warns a man to whom many warnings were mercifully sent, who refuses what is not in harmony with his own mind and hardens his neck in his own choice, clinging to his scientific theories. By rejecting the humbling of heart and reconversion that would have made him stand as the Lord's chosen physician, he brings himself under the threatened end, those who come under his influence lose spiritual discernment, and God's people cannot safely unite with him.
It warns the young man who despises his father's authority and restraint, that if he continues rejecting mercy and correction destruction will come unexpectedly, though sincere repentance and conversion can bring forgiveness through Jesus. It warns people who reject the evidence of Christ and the light He gives and make rebukes an obstacle, who continue unchecked on a downward course to a sudden end. It warns rulers, religious teachers and others who could have studied the prophecies to learn whether they concerned their own time and conduct but failed to do so, ending in eternal loss. It warns those persisting in low gratifications and selfish, greedy, fraudulent and dishonest practices, who will not prosper and whose prayers will not be heard. It warns one convinced of the truth but holding to love of the world and pride and fearing to cut loose from friends and relatives, who is led by Satan through professed friends and their tempting pleasures to stubbornly resist truth and stiffen the neck.
Repeated indulgence in intemperance, smoking, and tampering with drink corrupts the soul's principles until evil tastes and coarse habits become part of the nature and stain gathers upon stain degrading the whole being like leprosy. Even when repentance is accepted and transgression pardoned, the harmful influence of that past evil course upon others cannot be entirely undone or counteracted. Quoting the verse over Sister Lyman when she was set aside, to ask who goes next and to press that there may be hope today but it is gone tomorrow, creating a fearful excitement, is not of the Lord. It belongs to a hurried, fanatical, deceptive spirit with wrong burdens and exercises, which ministers standing in counsel and understanding their duty should check at once.