Detecting False Teaching
Des Moines, Iowa, May 3, 1897.
Dear brother N—:
... We have had a good deal of extra work and care of late through the sickness and death of two old sisters here, both of whom passed away last week.... What a comfort to think of those we love as present with the Lord, when absent from the body. Not glory yet, but rest and blessedness, and glory when the Lord comes, and the body puts on immortality, after the likeness of Christ’s body of glory.
I am glad you have fully detected the bad teaching of the Raven School. It is easy enough for one who is simple. I do not mean easy to be understood, but easy to detect as being wrong. But many mighty ones have fallen through it. And this is very sad and humbling. One feels that everything is breaking up. Surely the end is near. “Behold I come quickly” is a sweet sound for one who knows there is no hope for the Church but the coming of the Lord. And it is a comfort to think that if we have failed, He will not fail. He will present the Church to Himself a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle. Indeed this is our only hope. The Church will never be restored on earth, although the path of simple obedience is ever open to all who will walk in it, even if it be only two or three here and there in great feebleness gathered together to His name, and seeking by divine grace to answer to His thoughts.
... You may not have heard that... Mrs.— has lost her child. He died very suddenly of brain fever, after only ten hours’ illness. It has been a great blow to them all. But they bow nicely to the Lord’s will, knowing that He makes no mistakes. And no doubt they will find His blessing in the trial. God has blessing only, in His thoughts and purposes as to His people, and controls everything in heaven and earth to bring about that purpose, using the very ills to which we are subject, and even Satan himself, to contribute toward that end. The cases of Job and Peter are proof of this. The latter end of Job was better than the beginning and Peter’s state was better after sifting than before....
Very affectionately your brother in Him,