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Selected Messages Book 2
profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
(
Mark 8:36
). How will ease, comfort, convenience, compare with the
value of the souls of your children?—
Manuscript 76, 1905
.
The Refuge of Country Places
Let parents understand that the training of their children is an
important work in the saving of souls. In country places abundant,
useful exercise will be found in doing those things that need to be
done, and which will give physical health by developing nerve and
muscle. “Out of the cities” is my message for the education of our
children.
God gave to our first parents the means of true education when He
instructed them to till the soil and care for their garden home. After sin
came in, through disobedience to the Lord’s requirements, the work
to be done in cultivating the ground was greatly multiplied, for the
earth, because of the curse, brought forth weeds and thistles. But the
employment itself was not given because of sin. The great Master
Himself blessed the work of tilling the soil.
It is Satan’s purpose to attract men and women to the cities, and to
gain his object he invents every kind of novelty and amusement, every
kind of excitement. And the cities of the earth today are becoming as
were the cities before the Flood....
Who will be warned? We say again, “Out of the cities.” Do not
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consider it a great deprivation, that you must go into the hills and
mountains, but seek for that retirement where you can be alone with
God, to learn His will and way
I urge our people to make it their lifework to seek for spirituality.
Christ is at the door. This is why I say to our people, “Do not consider
it a privation when you are called to leave the cities and move out
into the country places. Here there await rich blessings for those who
will grasp them. By beholding the scenes of nature, the works of
the Creator, by studying God’s handiwork, imperceptibly you will be
changed into the same image.”—
Manuscript 85, 1908
.