Abhorrent to God (36)

    Quotations from the writings of Ellen G. White with the phrase . . .

           A B H O R R E N T    T O    G O D              (  4  RELATED  PHRASES  )       

      The  phrase  'abhorrent to God'  appears  36  times in the writings of EGW            page not on Original site          Related phrase:    abomination to God  (  )  - -  God abhors (  )  - -  offensive to God  ( 120 )

The Results of Domination—The holy principles that God has given are represented by the sacred fire; but common fire has been used in place of the sacred. Plans, contrary to truth and righteousness, are introduced in a subtle manner on the plea that this must be done, and that must be done, because it is for the advancement of the cause of God. But it is the devising of men that leads to oppression, injustice and wickedness. The cause of God is to be free from every taint of injustice. It can gain no advantage by robbing the members of the family of God of their individuality or of their rights. All such practices are abhorrent to God....  { ChL 31.1}   Read entire section

 

 

   The holy principles that God has given are represented as the sacred fire, but common fire has been used in place of the sacred. Plans contrary to truth and righteousness are introduced in a subtle manner on the plea that this must be done, and that must be done, “because it is for the advancement of the cause of God.” But it is the devising of men that leads to oppression, injustice, and wickedness. The cause of God is free from every taint of injustice. It can gain no advantage by robbing the members of the family of God of their individuality or their rights. All such practices are abhorrent to God. He inspires no such practices as have been entered into by your councils in regard to the publication of books. { TM 359.3}  and  { SpTA09 16.3 } 

 
  Jesus takes up the commandments separately, and explains the depth and breadth of their requirement. Instead of removing one jot of their force, He shows how far-reaching their principles are, and exposes the fatal mistake of the Jews in their outward show of obedience. He declares that by the evil thought or the lustful look the law of God is transgressed. One who becomes a party to the least injustice is breaking the law and degrading his own moral nature. Murder first exists in the mind. He who gives hatred a place in his heart is setting his feet in the path of the murderer, and his offerings are abhorrent to God— Desire of Ages, 310.2  { 2MCP 526.3 } 
  Jesus takes up the commandments separately, and explains the depth and breadth of their requirement. Instead of removing one jot of their force, He shows how far-reaching their principles are, and exposes the fatal mistake of the Jews in their outward show of obedience. He declares that by the evil thought or the lustful look the law of God is transgressed. One who becomes a party to the least injustice, is breaking the law, and degrading his own moral nature. Murder first exists in the mind. He who gives hatred a place in his heart, is setting his feet in the path of the murderer; and his offerings are abhorrent to God.  { ST March 29, 1910, par. 12 }

 

  It is our work to know our special failings and sins, which cause darkness and spiritual feebleness, and quenched our first love. Is it worldliness? Is it selfishness? Is it the love of self-esteem? Is it striving to be first? Is it the sin of sensuality that is intensely active? Is it the sin of the Nicolaitans, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness? Is it the misuse and abuse of great light and opportunities and privileges, making boasted claims to wisdom and religious knowledge, while the life and character are inconsistent and immoral? Whatever it is that has been petted and cultivated until it has become strong and overmastering, make determined efforts to overcome, else you will be lost. It is these cherished sins, abhorrent to God, that make enfeebled moral courage, and leave you to choose to walk apart from God, while you retain a miserable, heartless, outward form. Once the soul was all aglow with love for Jesus; but all this is changed. The great Head who moves in the midst of his candlesticks will never be without a church. There will be faithless ones who will go out from us because they were not of us. There will be apostasies. But “nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his.” There will be those who are evil, who hold the truth in unrighteousness, who are sensual, who are controlled by the master-worker in all evil, who will have to be separated from the church. { RH June 7, 1887, par. 16 }

 

  “The plea some are so ready to urge, ‘The cause of God,’ or ‘Working in behalf of the cause of God,’ to justify themselves in presenting robbery for burnt offering, is an offense to God. He accepts no such transactions; prosperity will not attend these movements. The Lord of heaven does not accept the strange fire offered to him. Let men deal with men upon the principles of the ten commandments, bringing these principles into their business transactions; for the great and holy and merciful God will never be in league with dishonest practises; not a single touch of injustice will he vindicate. The cause of God is free from every taint of injustice. It can gain no advantage by robbing the members of the family of God of their individuality or of their rights.  All such practises are abhorrent to God.  { PH146 38.1 }  also  { PH080 26.2 } 

 

  Idolatry and all the sins that followed in its train were abhorrent to God, and He commanded His people not to mingle with other nations, to “do after their works“, and forget God. He forbade their marriage with idolaters, lest their hearts should be led away from Him. It was just as necessary then as it is now that God’s people should be pure, “unspotted from the world.” They must keep themselves free from its spirit, because it is opposed to truth and righteousness. But God did not intend that His people, in self-righteous exclusiveness, should shut themselves away from the world, so that they could have no influence upon it. { PP 369.3} 

 

  The Lord presented before Israel the results of holding communion with evil spirits, in the abominations of the Canaanites: they were without natural affection, idolaters, adulterers, murderers, and abominable by every corrupt thought and revolting practice. Men do not know their own hearts; for “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” Jeremiah 17:9. But God understands the tendencies of the depraved nature of man. Then, as now, Satan was watching to bring about conditions favorable to rebellion, that the people of Israel might make themselves as abhorrent to God as were the Canaanites. The adversary of souls is ever on the alert to open channels for the unrestrained flow of evil in us; for he desires that we may be ruined, and be condemned before God. { PP 688.2} 

 

  To lean upon the arm of the law is a disgrace to Christians; yet this evil has been brought in and cherished among the Lord’s chosen people. Worldly principles have been stealthily introduced, until in practice many of our workers are becoming like the Laodiceans—half-hearted, because so much dependence is placed on lawyers and legal documents and agreements. Such a condition of things is abhorrent to God. — Manuscript 128, 1903. { 3SM 303.3} 

 

   Turn away from the society of the ungodly; devote every moment of your time in seeking the Lord while He may be found. You cannot live two lives, one for Christ and one for the devil. How long will you delight in sin itself, which is so abhorrent to God?  All the sweet influences of the Spirit of God have become extinguished in your soul. Now change. I tell you not to be despairing, but to come to a merciful, sin-pardoning Saviour. Sever the links; disconnect from them. { TSB 136.1} 

 

  He will represent the sacredness of the work, he will magnify the truth, and will ever present before men and angels the holy perfume of the character of Christ. This is the sacred fire of God’s own kindling. Anything aside from this is strange fire, abhorrent to God, and the more offensive as one’s position in the work involves larger responsibilities. { TM 357.2}

 

  Just how soon this refining process will begin I cannot say, but it will not be long deferred. He whose fan is in His hand will cleanse His temple of its moral defilement. He will thoroughly purge His floor. God has a controversy with all who practice the least injustice; for in so doing they reject the authority of God and imperil their interest in the atonement, the redemption which Christ has undertaken for every son and daughter of Adam. Will it pay to take a course abhorrent to God? Will it pay to put upon your censers strange fire to offer before God, and say it makes no difference? { TM 373.1} 

 

   This world is our school — a school of discipline and training. We are placed here to form characters like the character of Christ, and to acquire the habits and the language of the higher life. Influences opposed to good, abound on every side. The developments of sin are becoming so full, so deep, so abhorrent to God, that soon He will arise in majesty to shake terribly the earth. So artful are the plans of the enemy, so specious the complications that he brings about, that those who are weak in the faith cannot discern his deceptions. They fall into the snares prepared by Satan, who works through human instrumentalities to deceive if possible the very elect. Only those who are closely connected with God will be able to discern the falsehoods, the intrigues, of the enemy.... { TDG 96.2}  also  { BLJ 213.2}  also { AUCR February 1, 1904, par. 1 }

 

  As members of the Lord’s family we have a decided work to do. We must carefully examine our hearts to see if we are truly converted to God’s service. Are we entirely free from the worldly habits, ideas, and customs that are abhorrent to God?  { RH January 17, 1907, par. 2 }

 

  To lean upon the arm of the law is a disgrace to Christians; yet this evil has been brought in and cherished among the Lord’s chosen people. Worldly principles have been stealthily introduced, until in practice many of our workers are becoming like the Laodiceans—halfhearted, because so much dependence is placed on lawyers and legal documents and agreements. Such a condition of things is abhorrent to God. — Manuscript 128, 1903. (“Wrongdoing to Be Condemned; Righteousness to Be Exalted,” October 4, 1903.) { 5MR 418.3 } 
  To lean upon the arm of the law is a disgrace to Christians; yet this evil has been brought in and cherished among the Lord’s chosen people. Worldly principles have been stealthily introduced, until in practice many of our workers are becoming like the Laodiceans—half-hearted, because so much dependence is placed on lawyers and legal documents and agreements. Such a condition of things is abhorrent to God. { 16MR 4.3 } 

 

  The has Lord graciously given man a time of probation in which to perfect a character for eternal life; but those who are selfish, those who exalt self by seeking to abase another, making the most of every mote and defect in his character, prove that there is a beam in their own eye which unfits them for an entrance into the abode of life. The principles of divine goodness must dwell in the heart, in order that pure, generous, kindly thoughts and actions shall be manifested in the life. Everything like secret working, like deception, like anxiety to discover a mote in our brother’s eye, like officious effort to remove the mote when a beam is in our own eye, is abhorrent to God. Until the accuser discovers the evil of his own heart, and feels sincere repentance for his sin, and makes confession of his wrong, he can have no clear vision to pull the mote out of his brother’s eye. It is easy to deceive ourselves, but we cannot deceive God, to whose ears smooth words and fair speeches, which are only pretensions to piety, are as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Unless the principles of heaven are in-wrought in the heart, all outward profession is pretension and deception. God measures every man’s piety by the character of his motives. In the prayer of Christ for his disciples he utters these words: “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one [not biting and devouring one another]; as thou, Father, art in me, and I thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.” { RH August 16, 1892, par. 8 }

 

  Satan was watching for an opportunity to lead the people of God into conditions favorable to the development of rebellion and transgression, that they might make themselves as abhorrent to God as were the Canaanites. The adversary of souls is ever on the alert to open channels for the unrestrained flow of evil in our nature, that we have not overcome; for he desires that we may be ruined, and be condemned before God. { ST August 26, 1889, par. 6 }

 

  He will represent the sacredness of the work, he will magnify the truth, and will ever present before men and angels the holy perfume of the character of Christ. This is the sacred fire of God’s own kindling. Anything aside from this is strange fire, abhorrent to God, and the more offensive as one’s position in the work involves larger responsibilities. { SpTA09 13.3 } 

 

  The masterly spirit of self, which many manifest, is abhorrent to God, for it leads to actions that savor of evil. If Satan once gains a place in the mind, not only will he strive to retain all the advantages he has gained, but he will seek to obtain full possession. He will use the person over whom he has gained an influence to influence others. The man whose mind is controlled by Satan cannot be used by God to communicate His grace. With such a man Christ cannot cooperate. { 16MR 9.4 } 

 

  This world is our school — a school of discipline and training. We are placed here to form characters like the character of Christ, and to acquire the habits and the language of the higher life. Influences opposed to good, abound on every side. The developments of sin are becoming so full, so deep, so abhorrent to God, that soon He will arise in majesty to shake terribly the earth. So artful are the plans of the enemy, so specious the complications that he brings about, that those who are weak in the faith cannot discern his deceptions. They fall into the snares prepared by Satan, who works through human instrumentalities to deceive if possible the very elect. Only those who are closely connected with God will be able to discern the falsehoods and the intrigues of the enemy. { 20MR 154.1 } 

 

  I have been shown that the Jewish nation were not brought suddenly into their condition of thought and practice. From generation to generation they were working on false theories, carrying out principles that were opposed to the truth, and combining with their religion thoughts and plans that were the product of human minds; human inventions were made supreme. The holy principles that God has given are represented by the sacred fire; but common fire has been used in place of the sacred. Plans contrary to truth and righteousness, are introduced in a subtle manner on the plea that this must be done, and that must be done because it is for the advancement of the cause of God. But it is the devising of men that leads to oppression, injustice, and wickedness. The cause of God is to be free from every taint of injustice. It can gain no advantage by robbing the members of the family of God of their individuality or of their rights. All such practices are abhorrent to God. He inspires no such practices as have been entered into by your councils in regard to the publication of books. { 1888 1426.1 } 

 

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