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True Sanctification, April 20
I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build
you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.
Acts 20:32
.
What is genuine sanctification? Read
Exodus 31
. In that chapter we shall
understand the term, for God Himself has defined it. The Lord Jesus had given the
special directions how to build the tabernacle. As the children of Israel had been
compelled to work on the Sabbath, the sacredness of the day was not preserved.
As slaves in Egypt, they had largely lost the knowledge of the Sabbath. This is the
reason the commandments of God were given in awful grandeur upon Mount Sinai.
The Lord would guard His Sabbath in particular, and He knew the people would
forget the commandment of the Sabbath, and in their zeal the workmen would
say, “This work is the Lord’s, and under His supervision, and we can do His work
without observing the Sabbath....” Therefore the seventh day was distinguished as
God’s memorial and was to be kept holy unto the Lord that the people “may know
that I am the Lord that doth sanctify” them. This is genuine sanctification....
But the work must needs go deeper, take firmer hold of the life and of the
character. Some have thought they could easily persuade a sinner to give up his
idols, to keep God’s commandments, to believe Jesus is soon to come in the clouds
of heaven. When they can awaken no interest, no desire to search the Scriptures
to see if these things are indeed truth; when they see no conviction assured in
the minds of those who transgress the law of God; when they are frequently
met with flimsy excuses, with indifference or decided opposition and ridicule;
when their hearers turn aside to heap contempt upon God’s holy law, they become
discouraged. Where they looked for success, they found defeat....
Oh, how many lessons those young in the faith will have to learn in the exercise
of winning souls to Christ! Some will learn in defeat and failure the lessons they
would not otherwise have learned, but a few repulses have so chilling an influence
that the spark of grace almost becomes extinct in their own souls and they think it
does not pay to make efforts to save souls, and they no longer shine as lights in
the world. The thought of turning souls from the errors of their ways, the sense
of obligation to impart to others the precious light of truth, dies, and they do
nothing....
These difficulties, opposition, disappointments and discouragements they
must meet again in a more decided, intense manner, but they must be firm as a
rock to principle. If we are Christians, we must be Christlike, we must reflect
light.—
Letter 19c, April 20, 1874
, to W. C. White.
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