Stupid Monkeys and Dumber People   “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” Galatians 6:7. In other words, do not fool yourself; the crop comes, the crop comes. He thought it couldn’t happen, but it did. Dr. Oxnard, a celebrated surgeon of New Orleans, says that every man that smokes cigarettes will die of lung cancer unless he dies of something else first. That’s it. And yet, what are men doing? By the millions, they are doing just what this poor fellow did. What do they need? They need more than information, they need power. Thank God, “the gospel, is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth” Romans 1:16. “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” Isaiah 55:6-7. I was thinking also, as I read this experience, something that a doctor friend of mine was telling me, out at the Loma Linda University a few months ago. In an experiment that had been conducted in a great research center, in one of the great universities of the United States, they took some monkeys, and they were studying how the minds of monkeys worked. Some people, you know, think that monkeys and men are closely related, and so they work with monkeys — experiment with them. So in this experiment, they had monkeys in a cage, and they would… shock these monkeys. But they had a red light that went on, and they trained these monkeys, that if they would see that red light go on, and jump for a pole that was in the middle of the cage, they would escape the shock. Every monkey that grabbed the pole escaped the shock. Well, the monkeys caught on quite rapidly. And now watch. Having established this lesson in the monkey’s mind, if you jump when the red light goes on you won’t get shocked, then they gave these monkeys tranquilizers. And interestingly enough, dear friends, the monkeys would jump, but only after they got shocked. That’s right. The red light didn’t move a single tranquilized monkey! Deep in his brain was the message that jumping to the pole means safety. But watch this, don’t miss it friends; watch it right here! Deep in that brain was the lesson: “jumping to the pole means safety.” But the tranquilized monkey felt no need for any more safety than he had with that red light blinking. The red light didn’t bother him. It was the shock that finally moved him to jump. Ah, friends, do you see where this world is tonight? Tranquilized with alcohol, tranquilized with tobacco, tranquilized with tea and coffee and coca cola, tranquilized with all manner of drugs, tranquilized and hypnotized with many of these TV programs, and theater programs, movies, fiction in the press, on and on. Do you see what I’m getting at, my friends? The minds of people are indeed tranquilized, and as the result, as God’s red blinker blinks, as the warning light flashes, do people respond? Very seldom. Like the man that I just read you about — a scientist of national repute, with his name signed to the report, that lung cancer is, without question, due to cigarette smoking; and that cigarette smoking, without question, leads to fatal illness. Nevertheless, with that red light flashing that he himself  has seen flashing and helped to flash across a continent, he goes on smoking four packs a day, until the shock comes and then he jumps for the ‘pole.’ Isn’t it pitiful my friends? In most cases — as Dr. Harmer was just telling me this afternoon as I went over this with him — when the lung cancer is operated on, it’s already too late. It’s just a matter of time till the individual is gone. Do you hear our text echoing and re-echoing, louder and louder? “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near…” Isaiah 55:6. While there is time, while life lingers, while health is yours, while your mind can still work, let God have His way. And now did you notice that next verse there in Isaiah 55? Let the wicked, do what? Forsake his way. Ah, can I seek the Lord and still hold on to my way? Can I get help and still hang onto the cigarette? Won’t God heal me while I still go on puffing, puffing, puffing?  From Sermon #0967

While a woman was walking along a street in Chicago, two cars ran together, and there was a terrible smashup. Two or three bodies were lying there bleeding. She was telling about it the next day to some friends, and she said, “Not long before that, I had a home nursing course, a Red Cross first aid course, and I remembered what I had learned. I went over and… sat on the curb, and put my head between my knees, because that’s the way to keep from fainting.” She didn’t see anything funny about what she had said. Who was she thinking about? Herself. And it’s possible to be a nurse and be thinking about yourself. We are going into some terrible catastrophes in just a little while. Germany and Japan had them in the last war, and don’t think this land of light that has been favored for all these years is going to escape. What are we going to think about when troubles are all around us a hundred times more than they are now? Are we going to think about how we can get away from all this and be where nothing is ever going to touch us? If there was a chance to get a place so far removed from the needs and sorrows and problems of humanity that they would never touch us, there are more people than we would like to think about who call themselves medical mission­aries who would be standing in line to get a few acres in that location. You may say, “But Brother Frazee, I thought we were supposed to get in retired places.” We studied Enoch’s outpost not long ago. Enoch got into retired places all right, but they were within traveling distance of the cities where the need was, where the sin was, where the sorrow was. Friends, the plan of salvation is not something in which you and I selfishly isolate ourselves from the needs and sorrows and worries and sicknesses of others. Oh, no. Our Lord Jesus left the courts of glory where all was bliss, and came down and pitched His tent by the tents of men. He came into this pest house of a world, this laser house of sin and woe, and Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. As a result, He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Yet He was anointed with the oil of gladness. You and I can find the solution to our problems whether they are material, physical, or mental, whether our problem is lack of money or lack of health, or whether we are restless and discontent­ed. And if we have a spiritual problem that, try as we may, we can’t find peace and joy in God, the things we are studying may throw some light upon it. I offer it to you in that spirit. “Those who would be overcomers must be drawn out of themselves, and the only thing which will accomplish this great work is to become intensely interested in the salvation of others.” -Fundamnetals of Christian Education page 207 I am so glad, therefore, that God has offered to let us link up with Him in this great work of helping others and blessing others. Aren’t you, friends?

As great preachers of Babylon heal the sick and bring thousands to the altar, are they going to say that they are the devil’s agents, conducting an effort to bring souls to Satan? No. Not one of them. It will all be done in Jesus’ name. They are claiming that they are the fulfillment of scripture. They believe that speaking in tongues and healing the sick is the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That is what they say, and I don’t doubt that many of them believe it. But they are deluded. And the remnant will not be deceived by it. “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” Isaiah 8:20. We know that the spirit they receive did not come from the most holy place. If it did, it would lead them into conformity to the law of God; it would lead them into obedience to the Ten Commandments. So in these counterfeit movements which claim to be the work to prepare the church for the latter rain, there will be, and always will be…, the claim that this is it. I will give an example. One of the great words which the Spirit of Prophecy uses in connection with the work that the church must experience is the work of reformation. During and shortly after World War I, a movement arose in Germany which eventually developed into a group calling themselves the SDA Reform Church. For half a century, they have been hammering away at the defects in the church, the sins in the church, the worldliness in the church, and attempting to call God’s people to reform. They have the vocabulary of the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy. They claim to be the defenders of the truth. They claim to be the remnant of Revelation 12:17. But how is it we know this is not the movement which will prepare the remnant church for the latter rain? It is not because of their claims. It is because the way that they go about it is not the way heaven has told us to. “When men arise, claiming to have a message from God, but instead of warring against principalities and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world, they form a hollow square, and turn the weapons of warfare against the church militant, be afraid of them. They do not bear the divine credentials. God has not given them any such burden of labor. They would tear down that which God would restore by the Laodicean message. . . . The Lord lays upon no man a message that will discourage and dishearten the church. He reproves, He rebukes, He chastens; but it is only that He may restore and approve at last” Testimonies to Ministers, pages 22-23. This makes it simple. When men come along claiming to have a message from God, this is one of the tests we should bring them to. Where are they directing their weapons? When they shoot, what direction do they fire? If they are shooting at the church and its leadership, this says, Be afraid of them. I think this means exactly what it says. There are people who boast of their ability to read anything and it would not affect them. I say in simple words, Don’t fool yourself. There were some things that even the prophet of God would not read. When Brother Canright left this movement and wrote a letter explaining his reasons, one of the brethren wanted to read it to Sister White. She said, No. She wrote to Brother Canright and said, “If these are the things that have caused you to sell your birthright for a mess of pottage, I don’t want to run the risk of my mind being poisoned.” If the prophet of God was afraid to read some things, I wonder how it is that we have come to a time when it is fashionable to read anything. It is supposed to be an evidence of a broad mind. I repeat, Don’t fool yourself. The movement I spoke of in Germany has been going on. Some years later another movement arose in another part of the world field. It took as its special claim Righteousness by Faith. Are those words all right? Yes. And remember, the devil is never going to come into the Seventh-day Adventist Church with a message that says, This is from the devil, and is designed to fool you, and get you off the track. Oh, no. The devil is not going to do that. He takes the very words and phrases that belong to the true work of preparing the church for the latter rain, and he uses them. The devil has two purposes. One is he knows that thousands of our people are longing for true revival and reformation, so when something comes along that uses these words, thousands say, Maybe this is it. But that is the smallest purpose. The greatest purpose of the devil is to so prejudice our people against that which bears the name of reform, or against that which bears the name Righteousness by Faith, or against that which bears the name of the sanctuary message, or anything he can do to get our people afraid of the real thing, it suits him very much. Do not be mislead by Satan’s devices in either direction. If some movement chooses to call itself the SDA Reform Church, God help them. Let’s pray for them. And let’s go right ahead with our work of true reform within the framework of the organization that God has established. If some other movement in some other area chooses to take the name The Lord Our Righteousness, and begins to champion it in a way to draw away from the church, let us not spend time arguing over it. Let