The Remnant Church Not Babylon

The following words are taken from a series of articles by Ellen G. White, published in 1893 in the Review and Herald under the same title.

False Claims and Deception within the Church

For years I have borne my testimony to the effect that when any one arises claiming to have great light, and yet advocating the tearing down of that which the Lord through his human agents has been building up, they are greatly deceived, and are not working along the lines where Christ is working. Those who assert that the Seventh-day Adventist churches constitute Babylon, or any part of Babylon, might better stay at home. Let them stop and consider what is the message to be proclaimed at this time. In place of working with divine agencies to prepare a people to stand in the day of the Lord, they have taken their stand with him who is an accuser of the brethren, who accuses them before God day and night.

Opposition to the Remnant

Satanic agencies have been moved from beneath, and they have inspired men to unite in a confederacy of evil, that they may perplex, harass, and cause the people of God great distress. The whole world is to be stirred with enmity against Seventh-day Adventists, because they will not yield homage to the papacy, by honoring Sunday, the institution of this anti-Christian power. It is the purpose of Satan to cause them to be blotted from the earth, in order that his supremacy of the world may not be disputed.

God has a people in which all heaven is interested, and they are the one object on earth dear to the heart of God. Let every one who reads these words give them thorough consideration; for in the name of Jesus I would press them home upon every soul. When any one arises, either among us or outside of us, who is burdened with a message which declares that the people of God are numbered with Babylon, and claims that the loud cry is a call to come out of her, you may know that he is not bearing the message of truth. Receive him not, nor bid him Godspeed; for God has not spoken by him, neither has he given a message to him, but he has run before he was sent.

Misuse of the Testimonies and Falsehood

Such messages will come, and it will be claimed for them that they are sent of God, but the claim will be false; for they are not filled with light, but with darkness. There will be messages of accusation against the people of God, similar to the work done by Satan in accusing God's people. It will be found that those who bear false messages will not have a high sense of honor and integrity. They will deceive the people, and mix up with their error the Testimonies of sister White, and use her name to give influence to their work.

They make such selections from the Testimonies as they think they can twist to support their positions, and place them in a setting of falsehood, so that their error may have weight, and be accepted by the people. They misinterpret and misapply that which God has given to the church to warn, counsel, reprove, comfort, and encourage those who shall make up the remnant people of God. Those who receive the Testimonies as the message of God, will be helped and blessed thereby; but those who take them in parts, simply to support some theory or idea of their own, to vindicate themselves in a course of error, will not be blessed and benefited by what they teach. To claim that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is Babylon, is to make the same claim as does Satan, who is an accuser of the brethren, who accuses them before God night and day. By this misusing of the Testimonies, souls are placed in perplexity, because they cannot understand the relation of the Testimonies to such a position as is taken by those in error; for God intended that the Testimonies should always have a setting in the frame-work of truth.

Lessons from the Parable of the Wheat and Tares

The church of Christ on earth will be imperfect, but God does not destroy his church because of its imperfection. There have been and will be those who are filled with zeal not according to knowledge, who would purify the church, and uproot the tares from the midst of the wheat. But Christ has given special light as to how to deal with those who are erring, and with those who are unconverted in the church. There is to be no spasmodic, zealous, hasty action taken by church-members in cutting off those they may think defective in character. Tares will appear among the wheat; but it would do more harm to weed out the tares, unless in God's appointed way, than to leave them alone. 

Some people seem to think that upon entering the church they will have their expectations fulfilled, and meet only with those who are pure and perfect. They are zealous in their faith, and when they see faults in church-members, they say, “We left the world in order to have no association with evil characters, but the evil is here also;” and they ask, as did the servants in the parable, “From whence then hath it tares?” But we need not be thus disappointed, for the Lord has not warranted us in coming to the conclusion that the church is perfect; and all our zeal will not be successful in making the church militant as pure as the church triumphant. The Lord forbids us to proceed in any violent way against those whom we think erring, and we are not to deal out excommunications and denunciations to those who are faulty.  

Finite man is likely to misjudge character, but God does not leave the work of judgment and pronouncing upon character to those who are not fitted for it. We are not to say what constitutes the wheat, and what the tares. The time of the harvest will fully determine the character of the two classes specified under the figure of the tares and the wheat. The work of separation is given to the angels of God, and not committed into the hands of any man. False doctrine is one of the Satanic influences that work in the church, and brings into it those who are unconverted in heart. Men do not obey the words of Jesus Christ, and thus seek for unity in faith, spirit, and doctrine. They do not labor for the unity of spirit for which Christ prayed, which would make the testimony of Christ's disciples effective in convincing the world that God had sent his Son into the world, “that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” If the unity for which Christ prayed, existed among the people of God, they would bear living testimony, would send forth a bright light to shine amid the moral darkness of the world.  

Instead of the unity which should exist among believers there is disunion; for Satan is permitted to come in, and through his specious deceptions and delusions he leads those who are not learning of Christ meekness and lowliness of heart, to take a different line from the church, and break up, if possible, the unity of the church. Men arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after themselves. They claim that God has given them great light.

The Church's Role Amidst Worldly Evils

Although there are evils existing in the church, and will be until the end of the world, the church in these last days is to be the light of the world, that is polluted and demoralized by sin. The church, enfeebled and defective, needing to be reproved, warned, and counseled, is the only object upon earth upon which Christ bestows his supreme regard. The world is a workshop in which, through the co-operation of human and divine agencies, Jesus is making experiments by his grace and divine mercy upon human hearts.

There is but one church in the world who are at the present time standing in the breach, and making up the hedge, building up the old waste places; and for any man to call the attention of the world and other churches to this church, denouncing her as Babylon, is to do a work in harmony with him who is the accuser of the brethren. Is it possible that men will arise from among us, who speak perverse things, and give voice to the very sentiments that Satan would have disseminated in the world in regard to those who keep the commandments of God, and have the faith of Jesus? Is there not work enough to satisfy your zeal in presenting the truth to those who are in the darkness of error? As those who have been made stewards of means and ability, you have been misapplying your Lord's goods in disseminating error.

Warnings Against False Teachers and Protecting Unity

Those who start up to proclaim a message on their own individual responsibility, who while claiming to be taught and led of God, still make it their special work to tear down that which God has been for years building up, are not doing the will of God. Be it known that these men are on the side of the great deceiver. Believe them not. They are allying themselves with the enemies of God and the truth. They will deride the order of the ministry as a system of priestcraft. From such turn away, have no fellowship with their message, however much they may quote the testimonies and seek to intrench themselves behind them. Receive them not; for God has not given them this work to do. The result of such work will be unbelief in the Testimonies, and as far as possible, they will make of none effect the work that I have for years been doing. Almost my whole life-time has been devoted to this work, but my burden has often been made heavier by the arising of men who went forth to proclaim a message that God had not given them. This class of evil-workers have selected portions of the Testimonies, and have placed them in the frame-work of error, in order by this setting to give influence to their false testimonies. When it is made manifest that their message is error, then the Testimonies brought into the companionship of error, share the same condemnation; and people of the world, who do not know that the Testimonies quoted are extracts from private letters, used without my consent, present these matters as evidence that my work is not of God, or of truth, but falsehood. Those who thus bring the work of God into disrepute will have to answer before God for the work they are doing.

Those who are carrying this message of error, denouncing the church as Babylon, are neglecting their God-appointed work, are in opposition to organization, in opposition to the plain command of God spoken by Malachi in regard to bringing all the tithes into the treasury of God's house, and imagine that they have a work to do in warning those whom God has chosen to forward his message of truth. These workers are not bringing greater efficiency to the cause and kingdom of God, but are engaged in a work similar to that in which the enemy of all righteousness is engaged. Let these men who are rising up against the ways and means ordained of God to forward his work in these days of peril, divest themselves of all unscriptural views concerning the nature, office, and power of God's appointed agencies. Let all understand the words that I now write. Those who are laborers together with God, are but his instruments, and they in themselves possess no essential grace or holiness. It is only when they are co-operating with heavenly intelligences that they are successful. They are but the earthen vessels, the depositaries in which God places the treasure of his truth. Paul may plant, and Apollos water, but it is God alone that gives the increase.

God speaks through his appointed agencies, and let no man, or confederacy of men, insult the Spirit of God by refusing to hear the message of God's word from the lips of his chosen messengers. By refusing to hear the message of God, men close themselves in a chamber of darkness. They shut their own souls away from vast blessings, and rob Christ of the glory that should come to him, by showing disrespect to his appointed agencies.

God is not the author of confusion, but of peace. But Satan is a vigilant, unsleeping foe, ever at work upon human minds, seeking a soil in which he can sow his tares. If he finds any whom he can press into his service, he will suggest ideas and false theories, and make them zealous in advocating error. The truth not only converts, but works the purification of its receiver. Jesus has warned us to beware of false teachers. From the beginning of our work, men have arisen from time to time, advocating theories that were new and startling. But if those who claim to believe the truth, would go to those who have had experience, would go to the word of God in a teachable, humble spirit, and examine their theories in the light of truth, and with the aid of the brethren who have been diligent Bible students, and at the same time make supplication unto God, asking, Is this the way of the Lord, or is it a false path in which Satan would lead me? they would receive light, and would escape out of the net of the fowler.

False teachers may appear to be very zealous for the work of God, and may expend means to bring their theories before the world and the church; but as they mingle error with truth, their message is one of deception, and will lead souls into false paths. They are to be met, and opposed, not because they are bad men, but because they are teachers of falsehood, and are endeavoring to put upon falsehood the stamp of truth. What a pity it is that men will go to such pains to discover some theory of error, when there is a whole storehouse of precious gems of truth by which the people might be enriched in the most holy faith. Instead of teaching truth, they let their imagination dwell upon that which is new and strange, and throw themselves out of harmony with those whom God is using to bring the people up upon the platform of truth. They cast aside all that has been said in regard to unity of sentiment and feeling, and trample upon the prayer of Christ as though the unity for which he prayed was unessential, that there is no necessity for his followers to be one, even as he is one with the Father. They go off on a tangent, and Jehu-like, call to their brethren to follow their example of zeal for the Lord. If their zeal led them to work in the same lines in which their brethren who have carried the heat and burden of the day, are working; if they were as persevering to overcome discouragements and obstacles as their brethren have been, they might well be imitated, and God would accept them. But men are to be condemned who start out with a proclamation of wonderful light, and yet draw away from the agents whom God is leading. This was the way in which Korah, Dathan, and Abiram did, and their action is recorded as a warning to all others. We are not to do as they have done,—accuse and condemn those upon whom God has laid the burden of the work.

Embracing Unity and Mission

Those who have proclaimed the Seventh-day Adventist Church as Babylon, have made use of the Testimonies in giving their position a seeming support; but why is it that they did not present that which for years has been the burden of my message,—the unity of the church? Why did they not quote the words of the angel, “Press together, Press together, Press together”? Why did they not repeat the admonition and state the principle, that “in union there is strength, in division there is weakness?” It is such messages as these men have borne, that divide the church, and put us to shame before the enemies of truth, and in such messages is plainly revealed the specious working of the great deceiver, who would hinder the church from attaining unto perfection in unity. These teachers follow the sparks of their own kindling, move according to their own independent judgment, and cumber the truth with false notions and theories. They refuse the counsel of their brethren, and press on in their own way, until they become just what Satan would desire to have them,—unbalanced in mind.

I warn my brethren to guard against the working of Satan in every form. The great adversary of God and man is exulting today that he has succeeded in deceiving souls, and in diverting their means and ability into harmful channels. Their money might have been used to advance present truth, but instead of this, it has been expended in the presenting notions that have no foundation in truth.

Ever since the beginning of the work, one after another has risen up to do this kind of work, and I have had to go to the trouble and incur the expense of contradicting these falsehoods. They have published their theories, and have deceived many souls, but may God guard the sheep of his pasture. 

I urge those who claim to believe the truth, to walk in unity with their brethren. Do not seek to give to the world occasion to say that we are extremists, that we are disunited, that one teaches one thing, and one another. Avoid dissension. Let every one be on guard, and be careful to be found standing in the gap to make up the breach, in place of standing at the wall seeking to make a breach. Let all be careful not to make an outcry against the only people who are fulfilling the description given of the remnant people, who keep the commandments of God, and have the faith of Jesus, who are exalting the standard of righteousness in these last days. God has a distinct people, a church on earth, second to none, but superior to all in their facilities to teach the truth, to vindicate the law of God. God has divinely appointed agencies,—men whom he is leading, who have borne the heat and burden of the day, who are co-operating with heavenly instrumentalities to advance the kingdom of Christ in our world. Let all unite with these chosen agents, and be found at last among those who have the patience of the saints, who keep the commandments of God, and have the faith of Jesus.