The Church Indicted

Notes

1. "Laodicea signifies the judging of the people, or, according to Cruden, a just people. The message to the church brings to view the closing scenes of probation. It reveals a period of judgment. It is the last stage of the church, . . . while the great day of atonement is transpiring, and the investigative judgment is going forward upon the house of God,—a period during which the just and holy law of God is taken by the waiting church as their rule of life."—Thoughts on Daniel, page 371. Compare Mal. 3:17 with Rev. 3:13-21.

2. "The work of God which should be going forward with tenfold its present strength and efficiency is kept back, like a spring season held by the chilling blast of winter, because some of God's professed people are appropriating to themselves the means that should be dedicated to His service. Because Christ's self-sacrificing love is not interwoven in the life practices, the church is weak where it should be strong. By its own course it has put out its light, and robbed millions of the gospel of Christ. . . . To defraud God is the greatest crime of which man can be guilty; and yet this sin is deep and wide-spread."—Mrs. E. G. White, in Review and Herald, Oct. 13, 1896.

3. "Christ looks upon a vineyard unworked, a world unwarned, with wickedness increasing on every hand. The subject of tithes and offerings has not been dwelt upon as it should have been. Men are not naturally inclined to be benevolent, but to be sordid and avaricious, and to live for self. I entreat my brethren and sisters throughout the world to awaken to the responsibility that rests upon them to pay a faithful tithe. Do not allow lax principles to lead you to rob God. Keep a faithful account with your Creator. Realize fully the importance of being just with Him who has divine foreknowledge. Let every one search his heart diligently. Let him look up his accounts, and find out how he stands related to God. Let every one of you lay by him in store as God has prospered him. The poor and the rich, the young men and women who earn wages,—all are to lay by a portion, for God claims it."—Mrs. E. G. White, in Southern Watchman, Feb. 14, 1905.