Editorial – The Church that Appears to Fall- Part II

A professed Christian church that becomes united to the world and to the papacy is, by those acts, standing under sentence of being divorced of God. It is proper for a church to be subservient to civil laws of any state where she resides, as long as they do not violate the law of God, but churches and individuals are forbidden to amalgamate the things of God with the things of the state. (See Romans 13,14; I Peter 2; Acts 5:29; Matthew 22:21.)

A divorce generally takes some time. There are hearings; an opportunity for counseling and to make amends and restitution to the injured; time to decide whether the decision is final or whether there can be reconciliation, and a return of the affections according to the original covenant.

Where are your affections today, friend? To what is your heart united? To what is the church that you attend united? Is it united to this world, to the papacy? If so, then, when your church is finally divorced from God, you, if you are still part of it, will be divorced from God also, without hope. Are you praying that this will not happen to you?

“The mingling of churchcraft and statecraft is represented by the iron and the clay. This union is weakening all the power of the churches. This investing the church with the power of the state will bring evil results. Men have almost passed the point of God’s forbearance. . . . But the time will come when God will punish those who have made void His law, and their evil work will recoil upon themselves.” Ellen G. White Manuscript 63, 1899.

“The spirit of the papacy,—the spirit of conformity to worldly customs, the veneration for human traditions above the commands of God,—is permeating the Protestant churches, and leading them on to do the same work of Sunday exaltation which the papacy has done before them.” The Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 4, 390, 391.

The Sunday crisis is simply the final working out of a long process of the spirit of conformity to worldly customs and veneration of human tradition about the commands of God. If you, or the church that you attend, are going down that road, and if you do not repent, you will be divorced from God.

“God never forsakes people or individuals until they forsake Him. Outward opposition will not cause the faith of God’s people, who are keeping His commandments, to become dim. . . . Internal corruption will bring the denunciations of God upon this people as it did upon Jerusalem. . . . My brethren, we know not what is before us, and our only safety is in following the Light of the world. God will work with us and for us if the sins, which brought His wrath upon the old world, upon Sodom and Gomorrah and upon ancient Jerusalem, do not become our crime.” Ibid., 321.

“The least transgression of God’s law brings guilt upon the transgressor, and without earnest repentance and forsaking of sin he will surely become an apostate.” Ibid., 322.

Apostasy is a transliteration of a Greek word that means “to fall away.” If you are in this category, the invitation of Jesus to you is to repent and forsake your sins before it is too late. (See Revelation 2:21.)

To be continued…