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Selected Messages Book 1
not by their profession of godliness, but by their manifestation of the
transforming, sanctifying power of the truth on life and character....
The time is altogether too full of tokens of the coming conflict to
be educating the youth in fun and games.—
Letter 46, 1893
.
Danger of Light Becoming Darkness
The Lord has condescended to give you an outpouring of His Holy
Spirit. At the camp meetings, and in our various institutions, a great
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blessing has been showered upon you. You have been visited by the
heavenly messengers of light and truth and power, and it should not
be thought a strange thing that God should thus bless you. How does
Christ subdue His chosen people to Himself?—It is by the power of
His Holy Spirit; for the Holy Spirit, through the Scriptures, speaks
to the mind, and impresses truth upon the hearts of men. Before His
crucifixion, Christ promised that the Comforter should be sent to His
disciples. He said: “It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go
not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will
send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world
of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.... When he, the Spirit of
truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak
of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he
will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive
of mine, and shall shew it unto you” (
John 16:7, 8, 13-15
).
This promise of Christ has been made little enough of, and because
of a dearth of the Spirit of God, the spirituality of the law and its
eternal obligations have not been comprehended. Those who have
professed to love Christ, have not comprehended the relation which
exists between them and God, and it is still but dimly outlined to their
understanding. They but vaguely comprehend the amazing grace of
God in giving His only-begotten Son for the salvation of the world.
They do not understand how far reaching are the claims of the holy
law, how intimately the precepts of the law are to be brought into
practical life. They do not realize what a great privilege and necessity
are prayer, repentance, and the doing of the words of Christ. It is
the office of the Holy Spirit to reveal to the mind the character of the
consecration that God will accept. Through the agency of the Holy