Selected Messages Book 2 Contents - EllenWhiteDefend

1 Selected Messages book 2 Contents Page Section I--Fanaticism and Deceptive Teachings 1. Warnings Against Sensational Teachings and Emotional Religion 13 2. Early Fanaticism to Be Repeated 25 3. The "Holy Flesh" Doctrine 31 4. Warnings Against Deceptive Claims of the Spirit's Guidance 40 5. Miracles Not a Test of God's Favor 48 6. Our Safety Against Delusions 56 Section II--Erroneous and Subversive Movements 7. The Divine Credentials 63 8. Meeting the Claims of False Prophets 72 9. Earmarks of Erroneous Teaching 80 10. The Visions of Anna Phillips 85 6 11. To Be on Guard 96 12. The Three Angels and the Other Angel 101 Section III--Unwise Affiliations 13.

2 Should Christians Be Members of Secret Societies? 121 14. Avoiding Labor Conflicts 141 Section IV--Counsels for Workers 15. Admonition Will Be Heard 147 16. Christ's Lifework and Ours 154 17. Unity and Devotion 158 18. An Appeal to D. M. Canright 162 Section V--The Remuneration of Our Workers 19. An Object Lesson 173 20. General Principles Governing Worker Remuneration 179 21. The Workers in Our Institutions 190 22. Financial Assistance in Worker Qualification 208 23. Counsel to One Who for Financial Reasons Was Planning to Leave the Work of God 210 Section VI--Comfort and Encouragement 24. Words to Those in Advanced Years 221 25. Fortitude in Affliction 233 26.

3 Assurance to Those Facing Death 246 27. The Bereaved 257 Section VII--The Use of Medicinal Agencies 28. Statements on the Use of Drugs 279 29. The Use of Remedies 286 30. Ellen G. White's Use of Remedial Agencies 292 31. Personal Experiences 304 Section VIII--General Counsels 32. Proper Attitude in Prayer 311 33. "No Other Gods Before Me" 317 34. Useful Occupation Better Than Games 321 35. Guidance by Chance Methods 325 36. Providing for the Day of Need 329 37. The Aged Who Have No Homes 331 38. On the Military Question 332 39. Counsel on Voting 336 40. Hops, Tobacco, and Swine 338 41. Counsels on Certain Marriage Situations 339 42.

4 Counsel Regarding Intermarriage 343 43. Miraculous Healing 345 44. The Perils of Hypnosis 349 45. A Call to Country Living 354 46. Guided by God's Providences 360 Section IX--As We Near the End 47. Preparing for the Final Crisis 367 48. A Work of Purification Needed 376 49. A Distinctive Name and People 384 50. The Pillars of Our Faith 387 51. Loyal or Disloyal 392 52. The Church Triumphant 396 53. Last Messages to the General Conference 398 Appendix 1--Disease and Its Causes Chapter 1 411 Chapter 2 420 Chapter 3 441 Chapter 4 455 Chapter 5 465 Chapter 6 473 Appendix 2--Important Factors in Choosing A Life Companion 481 Appendix 3--The Brotherhood of Mankind 485 Chapter 1 - Warnings Against Sensational Teachings and Emotional Religion The Danger of Speculative Ideas There is a time of trouble coming to the people of God, but we are not to keep that constantly before the people, and rein them up to have a time of trouble beforehand.

5 There is to be a shaking among God's people; but this is not the present truth to carry to the churches. It will be the result of refusing the truth presented. ( ) The ministers should not feel that they have some wonderful advanced ideas, and unless all receive these, they will be shaken out, and a people will arise to go forward and upward to the victory. Satan's object is accomplished just as surely when men run ahead of Christ and do the work He has never entrusted to their hands, as when they remain in the Laodicean state, lukewarm, feeling rich and increased with goods, and in need of nothing. The two classes are equally stumbling blocks. ( ) Some zealous ones who are aiming and straining every energy for originality have made a grave mistake in trying to get something startling, wonderful, entrancing, before the people, something that they think others do not comprehend; but often they do not themselves know what they are talking about.

6 They speculate upon God's Word, advancing ideas that are not a whit of help to themselves or 14 to the churches. For the time being, they may excite the imagination; but there is a reaction, and these very ideas become a hindrance. Faith is confounded with fancy, and their views may bias the mind in the wrong direction. Let the plain, simple statements of the Word of God be food for the mind; this speculating upon ideas that are not clearly presented there, is dangerous manuscript 111. ( ) The danger that threatens our churches is that new and strange things will be brought in, things that confuse the minds of the people, and give them no strength, at the very time when they most need strength in spiritual things. Clear discernment is needed that things new and strange shall not be laid alongside of truth as a part of the burden of the message to be given at this time.

7 The very Messages we have been giving to the world are to be made prominent. --An Appeal for Canvassers, pp. 1, 2. ( ) The Charm of New Theories Every phase of fanaticism and erroneous theories, claiming to be the truth, will be brought in among the remnant people of God. These will fill minds with erroneous sentiments which have no part in the truth for this time. Any man who supposes that in the strength of his own devised resolutions, in his intellectual might united with science or supposed knowledge, he can start a work which will conquer the world, will find himself lying among the ruins of his own speculations, and will plainly understand why he is there.. ( ) From the light given me of the Lord, men will arise speaking perverse things.

8 Yea, already they have been working and speaking things which God has never revealed, bringing sacred truth upon a level with common things. Issues have been and will continue to be made of men's conceited fallacies, not of truth. The devisings of men's minds will invent tests that are no tests at all, that when the true test shall be made prominent, it shall be considered on a par with the man-made tests that have 15 been of no value. We may expect that everything will be brought in and mingled with sound doctrine, but by clear, spiritual discernment, by the heavenly anointing, we must distinguish the sacred from the common which is being brought in to confuse faith and sound judgment, and demerit the great, grand, testing truth for this time.

9 ( ) Never, never was there a time when the truth suffered more from being misrepresented, belittled, demerited through the perverse disputings of men than in these last days. Men have brought themselves in with their heterogeneous mass of heresies which they represent as oracles for the people. The people are charmed with some strange new thing, and are not wise in experience to discern the character of ideas that men may frame up as something. But to call it something of great consequence and tie it to the oracles of God, does not make it truth. Oh, how this rebukes the low standard of piety in the churches. ( ) Men who want to present something original will conjure up things new and strange, and without consideration will step forward on these unstable theories, that have been woven together as a precious theory, and present it as a life and death 136a, 1898.

10 ( ) The Need for Clear Discernment As we near the time when principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places will be brought into warfare against the truth, when the deceiving power of Satan will be so great that if it were possible he will deceive the very elect, we must have our discernment sharpened by divine enlightenment, that we may know the spirit that is of God, that we may not be ignorant of Satan's devices. Human effort must combine with divine power, that we may be able to accomplish the closing work for this time. ( ) Christ uses the wind as a symbol of the Spirit of God. As the wind bloweth whither it listeth, and we cannot tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth, so it is with the Spirit of God.