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Testimonies for the Church Volume 6
a sermon. And this can be followed by a meeting for prayer and
testimony.
Those who occupy a leading position in the church should not
exhaust their physical and mental strength through the week so that
on the Sabbath they are unable to bring the vivifying influence of the
gospel of Christ into the meeting. Do less temporal, everyday labor,
but do not rob God by giving Him, on the Sabbath, service which
He cannot accept. You should not be as men who have no spiritual
life. The people need your help on the Sabbath. Give them food from
the word. Bring your choicest gifts to God on His holy day. Let the
precious life of the soul be given to Him in consecrated service.
Let none come to the place of worship to take a nap. There should
be no sleeping in the house of God. You do not fall asleep when
engaged in your temporal business, because you have an interest in
your work. Shall we allow the service which involves eternal interests
to be placed on a lower level than the temporal affairs of life?
When we do this we miss the blessing which the Lord designs us
to have. The Sabbath is not to be a day of useless idleness. Both in
the home and in the church a spirit of service is to be manifested. He
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who gave us six days for our temporal work has blessed and sanctified
the seventh day and set it apart for Himself. On this day He will in a
special manner bless all who consecrate themselves to His service.
All heaven is keeping the Sabbath, but not in a listless, do-nothing
way. On this day every energy of the soul should be awake, for are we
not to meet with God and with Christ our Saviour? We may behold
Him by faith. He is longing to refresh and bless every soul.
Everyone should feel that he has a part to act in making the Sabbath
meetings interesting. You are not to come together simply as a matter
of form, but for the interchange of thought, for the relation of your
daily experiences, for the expression of thanksgiving, for the utterance
of your sincere desire for divine enlightenment, that you may know
God, and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent. Communing together in
regard to Christ will strengthen the soul for life’s trials and conflicts.
Never think that you can be Christians and yet withdraw yourselves
within yourselves. Each one is a part of the great web of humanity, and
the experience of each will be largely determined by the experience of
his associates.