Conformity to the World
115
Jesus is coming, and will He find a people conformed to the world?
and will he acknowledge them as His people that He has purified unto
Himself? Oh, no. None but the pure and holy will He acknowledge as
[129]
His. Those who have been purified and made white through suffering,
and have kept themselves separate, unspotted from the world, He will
own as His.
As I saw the dreadful fact that God’s people were conformed to
the world, with no distinction, except in name, between many of the
professed disciples of the meek and lowly Jesus, and unbelievers, my
soul felt deep anguish. I saw that Jesus was wounded and put to an
open shame. Said the angel, as with sorrow he saw the professed
people of God loving the world, partaking of its spirit, and following
its fashions, “Cut loose! Cut loose! lest He appoint you your portion
with hypocrites and unbelievers outside the city. Your profession will
only cause you greater anguish, and your punishment will be greater,
because ye knew His will, but did it not.”
Those who profess to believe the third angel’s message often
wound the cause of God by lightness, joking, and trifling. I was
shown that this evil was all through our ranks. I saw that there should
be a humbling before the Lord. The Israel of God should rend the
heart, and not the garment. Childlike simplicity is rarely seen; the
approbation of man is more thought of than the displeasure of God.
Said the angel, “Set your heart in order, lest He visit you in judg-
ment, and the brittle thread of life be cut, and you lie down in the
grave unsheltered, unprepared for the judgment. Or if ye do not make
your bed in the grave, unless ye soon make your peace with God, and
[130]
tear yourselves from the world, your hearts will grow harder, and ye
will lean upon a false prop, a supposed preparation, and find out your
mistake too late to secure a well-grounded hope.”—
Testimonies for
the Church 1:127-134
.
What Shall It Profit?
Christ calls upon every one to consider. Make an honest reckoning.
Put into one scale Jesus, which means eternal treasure, life, truth,
heaven, and the joy of Christ in souls redeemed; put into the other
every attraction the world can offer. Into one scale put the loss of
your own soul, and the souls of those whom you might have been