Chapter 7—It’s Still a Fight
What Sin Has Done
More clearly than we do we need to understand the issues at stake
in the great conflict in which we are engaged. We need to understand
more fully the value of the truths of the word of God and the danger
of allowing our minds to be diverted from them by the great deceiver.
The infinite value of the sacrifice required for our redemption
reveals the fact that sin is a tremendous evil. Through sin the whole
human organism is deranged, the mind is perverted, the imagination
corrupted. Sin has degraded the faculties of the soul. Temptations
from without find an answering chord within the heart, and the feet
turn imperceptibly toward evil.
As the sacrifice in our behalf was complete, so our restoration from
the defilement of sin is to be complete. No act of wickedness will the
law of God excuse; no unrighteousness can escape its condemnation.
The ethics of the gospel acknowledge no standard but the perfection
of the divine character....
It Takes Perseverance
Wrongs cannot be righted, nor can reformations in conduct be
made by a few feeble, intermittent efforts. Character building is the
work, not of a day, nor of a year, but of a lifetime. The struggle for con-
quest over self, for holiness and heaven, is a lifelong struggle. Without
continual effort and constant activity, there can be no advancement in
the divine life, no attainment of the victor’s crown.
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The strongest evidence of man’s fall from a higher state is the fact
that it costs so much to return. The way of return can be gained only
by hard fighting, inch by inch, hour by hour. In one moment, by a
hasty, unguarded act, we may place ourselves in the power of evil;
but it requires more than a moment to break the fetters and attain to
a holier life. The purpose may be formed, the work begun; but its
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