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A Better and Nobler Way, January 18
Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from
before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well.
Isaiah 1:16, 17
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Ignorance, pleasure loving, and sinful habits, corrupting soul, body,
and spirit, make the world full of moral leprosy; a deadly moral malaria is
destroying thousands and tens of thousands.
Many are sunken in sin. Many are in distress. They are pressed with
suffering, want, unbelief, despondency. Disease of every type afflicts them,
both in body and in soul. They long to find a solace for their troubles, and
Satan tempts them to seek it in lusts and pleasures that lead to ruin and
death. He is offering them the apples of Sodom, that will turn to ashes upon
their lips.
A terrible picture of the condition of the world has been presented before
me. Immorality abounds everywhere. Licentiousness is the special sin of
this age. Never did vice lift its deformed head with such boldness as now....
The iniquity which abounds is not merely confined to the unbeliever and the
scoffer. Would that this were the case, but it is not. Many men and women
who profess the religion of Christ are guilty. Even some who profess to be
looking for His appearing are no more prepared for that event than Satan
himself. They are not cleansing themselves from all pollution. They have
so long served their lust that it is natural for their thoughts to be impure and
their imaginations corrupt. It is as impossible to cause their minds to dwell
upon pure and holy things as it would be to turn the course of Niagara and
send its waters pouring up the falls.... Every Christian will have to learn to
restrain his passions and be controlled by principle....
If lasciviousness, pollution, adultery, crime, and murder are the order
of the day among those who know not the truth, and who refuse to be
controlled by the principles of God’s word, how important that the class
professing to be followers of Christ, closely allied to God and angels, should
show them a better and nobler way! How important that by their chastity
and virtue they stand in marked contrast to that class who are controlled by
brute passions!
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