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The Word of God Your Guide, April 21
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
Psalm 119:105
.
If we would work wisely and intelligently, our human passions, our hereditary
and cultivated tendencies, must be brought under the control of a higher and more
commanding generalship than human ability....
“Cease to do evil; learn to do well.” This is the lesson everyone should learn
day by day. The training due to one’s self comes first. The influence exerted by
a life of strict integrity will be a continual education to others. Those who are
restrained and guided by the moral and religious principles plainly laid down in
God’s Word walk in accordance with the mind and will of God, who is too wise
to err and too good to do us harm.
If you would walk wisely, walk in the way of God’s commandments. The
Word of God you have in your keeping, right at hand. This Word is so plain that
none need go astray unless they allow themselves to be led by their hereditary and
cultivated tendencies to wrong. Your Redeemer met Satan’s treacherous advances
with the words, “It is written,” and with the imperative command, “Get thee behind
me, Satan.” I counsel you to receive with meekness the engrafted Word, which is
able to save your soul. The Word of God is your haven. It is a tower of strength,
into which you may run and be safe....
The earnest, sincere searcher for truth will not mistake truth for error. The
Word of God is the bread of life, of which all may partake and obtain eternal
life. Error is falsehood and deception. Those who partake of it must suffer in
consequence, as did Adam and Eve in Eden. It is the privilege of all to search with
prayerful, eager interest for the truth. Truth is the tree of life, the leaves of which
the human family are to eat and live.
Those who try to interpret the Word according to their own ideas, who read it
in accordance with their opinions, will never see the truth, and will die in their
sins. Those who eat of the forbidden tree accept Satan’s fallacies in the place of
“Thus saith the Lord,” and unless they repent, they will never gain that life which
measures with the life of God. As did Adam and Eve, they exclude themselves
from the tree of life, the fruit of which perpetuates immortality....
We are living amid the solemnities of the judgment. Our souls should be filled
with awe, for we are in God’s presence continually. Each one must decide for
himself whether he will obey and live or disobey and perish.
To those who obey, the Word of God is the tree of life. It is the word of
salvation, received unto eternal life.—
Letter 60, April 21, 1900
, to a church
member in Rochester, New York.
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