Vol. 1 Timely
Greetings No. 51
THE ONLY
PEACE OF MIND
Volume 1
Number 51
Copyright, 1953 Reprint
All rights reserved
V.T. HOUTEFF
IS RELIGION SOMETHING
LIVING AND GROWING?
OR IS IT SOMETHING
DEAD AND WANING?
Timely Greetings, Vol. 1,
No. 51 1
TEXT FOR PRAYER
Take No Thought For
The Morrow
I shall read from "Christ's Object
Lessons," beginning on page 18.
"Christ sought to remove that which
obscured the truth.... His words placed the teachings of nature as well as of
the Bible in a new aspect, and made them a new revelation.... He gave the
lesson, 'Consider the lilies of the field, how they
grow [in the simplicity of natural beauty]; they toil not, neither do they
spin: and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not
arrayed like one of these.' Then
followed the sweet assurance and the important lesson, 'Wherefore,
if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast
into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?' In the sermon on the mount
these words...were spoken to the multitude, among whom were men and women full
of worries and perplexities, and sore with disappointment and sorrow. Jesus continued: 'Therefore take no thought,
saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we
drink? or,
Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (for after all these things do the Gentiles seek;) for your
heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all
these things.'..."
We are now to pray that as Christ's
servants, we do all we can to remove that which obscures the Truth of today;
that we find light through nature and the Bible; that we realize that the Lord
cares for us more than He cares for the lilies; that we learn to trust in Him
and to do His bidding, and be no longer like the Gentiles who worry about the
things of this world; that we know He will see that we have all our needs if
our chief business is to advance His Kingdom.
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No. 51 2
IS RELIGION
SOMETHING LIVING AND GROWING? OR IS IT SOMETHING DEAD AND WANING?
TEXT OF ADDRESS BY V.T. HOUTEFF,
MINISTER OF DAVIDIAN 7TH-DAY ADVENTISTS
SABBATH,
MT.
Is religion something that grows and
expands, or is it something that stands still?
Just the other day we heard on the radio a certain minister boast that
his denomination has not added or discarded a doctrine ever since it was organized. Is this something to brag about? or is it something
to bemoan? This is a question to which
we now wish to find the answer.
If the world does not stand still, if it
makes the progress it does, then why should the church stand still? Why should the church not know more of God
and more of the Bible today than she did yesterday? Why should Christianity be proud of not
adding Bible doctrines? What a world
this would be if everything was not moving ahead as it is!
If we were to compare the world's increased knowledge
and accomplishments in the last 50 or 100 years with the Church's increased
knowledge and accomplishments in the same period of time, we may see that there
is no comparison whatsoever.
Look at the progress the world has made, and
look at the stupidity which the Church is cultivating. Yes, I say cultivating, because it seems that
rather than bemoaning
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the fact of not having added
or discarded a doctrine, and rather than encouraging the people to be on the
watch for God's visitations, they are making it their business to keep the
laity from coming in contact with God's messengers and His progressive Truth,
with "meat in due season," with God's messages for today. Anything that does not originate in their own
conventions, the laity are told to have nothing to do
with it. This they do simply because
they themselves do not accept the Truths God sends; and because if any of their
congregation came in contact with and accept It, they
naturally will have to join Truth wherever Truth is. So it is their chief business to keep the
laity in darkness and in fear that someone is to deceive them if they expose
themselves to anything that their ministers do not approve.
Such a course may hold back progress for
years, but it can never succeed, -- no, not any more than did the opponents of
Galileo make the earth flat by compelling him to recant his position that the
earth is round, and no more than Rome succeeded against the Protestant Reformation
or the priests and rabbis against Christianity.
It is, therefore, high time to realize that people who must be held in
ignorance of something in order to be kept loyal to the Church, are certainly
not worth having; and that the only way to have them really loyal, and firmly
established in the Truth, and saved in the Kingdom, is to teach the Truth and
then give them freedom to choose so that they themselves might personally know
what is Truth and what is error. To keep
them in darkness of what the deceivers teach (if they be deceivers), is to keep
them ignorant of what is in the air. It
is to forever close Heaven's communication line, and to make of the people
spiritual invalids and automatons. The
people must for themselves know what the Truth is, and
for themselves must decide what to do with It if they are ever to be granted
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admission to the Kingdom.
Both those who must be fenced in, or led with a rope or driven with a
club as it were into the Kingdom, and those who build the fence, pull the rope,
or hold the club will find the door closed, and will hear the Master say,
"Depart from Me; I never knew you."
Ministers are not called to be taskmasters, nor
conscience for others. They are called
to be teachers of the Truth.
If the Church is not making progress with
Truth, if she is not periodically adding unquestionable knowledge to knowledge,
then, I am sure, she has nothing to boast about. She is inactive, her communication line with
Heaven broken, is God forsaken, dead.
She can never serve her members with "meat in due season" from
the throne of God.
Let us for example take religion as it is in
the Bible today. It did not come all at
once. Rather, it took something like
four thousand years to accumulate, and about two thousand more years to
comprehend as much as the Church has comprehended by now.
If we should compare Abel's knowledge of
religion with the Christian's knowledge of it, we should no doubt discover that
there is no comparison, that Abel knew comparatively only the very first
principle of the Christian's faith. If
religion, therefore, is not something living, growing, and progressing, then
what is it?
Abel's religion of six thousand years ago
has advanced and expanded to meet the people's necessities of today. This was done only by Inspiration's adding to
it, and Itself unfolding it. If the Church is not commensurably growing
and expanding, then how can she be a living Church? and how can she keep
up
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with the signs of the times, and with the progress in the
sanctuary above?
Let us read:
Eph. 4:11-14 -- "And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some,
evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints,
for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we
all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ:
that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about
with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness,
whereby they lie in wait to deceive."
Inspiration makes it plain that God's plan
is that the Church should ever be growing both in knowledge and perfection till
we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;
that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about
with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness,
whereby they lie in wait to deceive.
Since the Church has not yet attained the
standard set forth in this verse of Scripture, it is obvious that she needs to
have greater knowledge of Bible religion than she has at the present time.
Being far from having reached such unity of
faith, of knowledge, and perfection, we see the need as clear as crystal: We as
Christians need to start growing, otherwise the season of such growth will pass
and we shall be left but dwarfs, not having advanced far
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enough to be eligible for a home in the Kingdom. Then shall it come to pass that all such unmatured Christians shall bitterly cry out, "The
harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." Jer. 8:20.
Bible knowledge you see, is Heaven's way to
salvation and eternity, but the modern minister's way is to keep men ignorant
of what is taught outside their own circles, so they may have men under their
control.
That Truth is growing, and that we should
keep pace with It, we shall now read:
Rev. 14:6-10 -- "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the
everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every
nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear
God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship
Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. And there followed another angel, saying,
Here are represented three messages, one
following the other. Unless we keep pace
with each of them progressively, we shall find ourselves trailing behind the
time, as are the Jews to this day.
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Those who fail to keep pace with the Truth
as Inspiration unfolds It, can never, of course, come to "the unity of the
faith," and to a full "knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect
man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Such will forever be "children, tossed
to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of
men,..." Eph. 4:13, 14.
Plainly, then, religion itself is something
living and unfolding, but the tragedy is that not all are keeping pace with it.
Let us look into this vital subject even
more concretely. Truth, you know, kept
unfolding and growing even after Moses' death.
The Jews, though, killed the prophets and did not advance any further
than where Moses left them. In fact,
they ever retrogressed. And so they are
where they are today because they failed to change their course even though
prophet after prophet was sent to keep them from the pit into which they were
fast falling. Even Christ Himself failed
to awaken them to the dreadfulness of their situation. Only a comparatively few saw the red light,
the danger, and returned to the Lord.
This halting and backsliding never did
stop. It has continued on and on to this
very day. Even the early Christian
church herself eventually went to sleep, and brought on the Dark Ages of
religion. Moreover, though Inspiration
placed the bright light of Truth in the hand of the Reformation during the
darkest hour of that day, yet the Church as a whole failed to see the light,
failed to see the need of reformation.
Rather than coming to the light, the church did all she could to put it
out. The elect, nevertheless, walked out
of the darkness and into the
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light. Thus it was
that another sect, the Lutheran denomination, was organized.
But this was only the beginning of the
Reformation. As one Truth after another
began to unfold, and each forced the inception of a new denomination because
each of the older daughters (sects), following in the footsteps of the mother,
herself, refused to keep pace with the messages. Indeed, the Lutheran denomination itself,
like all others before or after, was satisfied to remain where Luther left
it. And so of necessity another, the
Presbyterian denomination, came into being. Thus down the stream of time one denomination
after another has done likewise.
This is how it has been all through the
centuries. This is why not one of the
churches has climbed any higher than the founders left them. And this is why Christians, rather than
growing into the unity of the faith, are with each passing day, becoming more
and more disunited in faith and hostile to each other's faith.
To boast, therefore, that one's denomination
has never added a doctrine or laid off one, is to admit that his church is at a
standstill, virtually saying, "We are rich and increased with goods, and
have need of nothing," when in fact they are "wretched, miserable,
poor, blind, and naked," but know it not.
Very obviously, religion is something which
grows and unfolds, but its people as an organization have never kept pace with
it.
The most astonishing part of it is that
those who have led the denominations after the death of their founders, rather
than teach the laity to watch and
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wait for more revealed Truth, instead are teaching that
their church has all Truth and that there is need of no more.
Here we see that the "church
militant" is in reality the church which is militant against advancing
Truth, and that "the church triumphant" is the church which marches
on with the progress of Truth.
This fact was seen at the very first step
toward progress in religion: Both Cain and Abel were endeavoring to walk in the
highway of progress by each offering a sacrifice. Abel worshiped according to the wisdom of
God, whereas Cain worshiped according to the wisdom of man. Cain's sacrifice was merely the counterfeit
of Abel's. Here we see that where Truth
is, there is also a counterfeit. While
there are denominations which were established on Truth, there are also
counterfeits, and that is what accounts for the great multiplicity of
denominations and sects.
Cain's slaying Abel for doing what the Lord
would have him do, is a type of false worship, of opposition and of persecution. Thus has it been in the past, and still is:
Those who are in error are ever found hostile against Truth and persecuting
those who practice the Truth.
Now suppose that Abel had lived until our
day and had followed the progress of Truth through each generation, what would
have been his experience in religion? -- He would necessarily have joined with
Enoch's movement; with Noah's; with Abraham's; with Jacob's; with Moses'; with
all the prophets'; with John the Baptist's; with the Apostles'; then with the
Lutherans'; with the Presbyterians'; with the Methodists'; with the First-day
Adventists'; with the Seventh-day
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Adventists'; and at last he
would have joined the Davidian Seventh-day Adventists. In order for him to keep up with advancing
Truth, Abel would have had to leave one movement and join another at each new unfoldment of Truth, otherwise he
would have remained as ignorant in the progress of religion as have the Jews.
We now see as plainly as Truth can make it,
that throughout the ages, the Church triumphant was and still is made up of the
Church's members who unceasingly kept climbing the ladder of Truth all along to
this day.
Ezek. 36:23, 24 -- "And I will sanctify My great name, which was profaned among the
heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall
know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I
shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.
For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all
countries, and will bring you into your own land."
Here the truth is again reiterated: Those
who are determined to stay down on the first rung of the ladder of Truth, will be left there to stay forever. But those who keep pace with Truth shall be
brought into their own land, no longer having to sit in the pews with the Laodiceans and no longer having to tread the lands of the
Gentiles.
Ezek. 36:25 -- "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean:
from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you."
This thorough and final cleansing, you see,
is obtained only after the Church triumphant moves into
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the Promised Land.
Those who fail to keep pace with the Truth and who choose to stay with
their idols, will be unable to carry out their personal desires anyway, for
"they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the
earth, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of His majesty, when He ariseth to shake terribly the earth." Isa. 2:19.
Ezek. 36:26 -- "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put
within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will
give you an heart of flesh."
When this cleansing takes place, then it is
that a new heart and a new spirit will be given to all who are now striving to
grow in the knowledge of God, and who are then found in the Kingdom. After this heart operation takes place, to do
the will of God will be but a natural thing: There will no longer be a struggle
against the carnal heart.
Ezek. 36:27-29 -- "And I will put My spirit within you, and
cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments, and do
them. And ye shall dwell in the land
that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be My
people, and I will be your God. I will
also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will
call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you."
Dan. 12:1 --
"And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be
a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same
time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be
found written in the book."
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Lo, the world is already headed for the time
of trouble. And when it is reached,
refuge will be found only in an up-to-date Truth, Truth that puts one's name in
Michael's book of Heaven.
Dan.
Who are the wise: -- They must be those who
are ever searching for "golden oil," those who have their vessels
full (Matt. 25:1-13). Those who are let
in through the door are those who have obtained and followed an up-to-date map
of Truth.
Religion, Brother, Sister, is not something
dead and waning. It is something living and growing, and God's people grow with
it.
And now in closing I wish to leave this
question for you to ponder and to answer to yourself: Is this experience -- the
experience of progressing with Truth -- your experience? If it is not, then why not? yes, why? Is it not worth everything -- money, houses,
lands, friends, mothers, fathers, husbands or wives? Is it not worth all these in order to double
them? (See Isaiah 61:6, 7; Mark
10:28-31.)
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