Influence of Perception
267
The Mind Can Be Educated to Accept Sin—A long prepara-
tory process, unknown to the world, goes on in the heart before the
Christian commits open sin. The mind does not come down at once
from purity and holiness to depravity, corruption, and crime. It takes
time to degrade those formed in the image of God to the brutal or
the satanic. By beholding we become changed. By the indulgence
of impure thoughts man can so educate his mind that sin which he
once loathed will become pleasant to him.—
Patriarchs and Prophets,
459
(1890).
Powers Become Playthings of the Enemy—God gives no per-
mission to man to violate the laws of his being. But man, through
yielding to Satan’s temptations to indulge intemperance, brings the
higher faculties into subjection to the animal appetites and passions.
When these gain the ascendency, man, who was created a little lower
than the angels, with faculties susceptible of the highest cultivation,
surrenders to be controlled by Satan. And he gains easy access to
those who are in bondage to appetite. Through intemperance, some
sacrifice one half, others two thirds, of their physical, mental, and
moral powers and become playthings for the enemy.—
The Review
and Herald, September 8, 1874
. (
Messages to Young People, 236
.)
Counsel to One Who Imagined Injury When It Did Not Ex-
ist—Sister D has been deceived in some things. She has thought that
God instructed her in a special sense, and you both have believed and
acted accordingly. The discernment which she has thought she pos-
[337]
sessed in a special sense is a deception of the enemy. She is naturally
quick to see, quick to understand, quick to anticipate, and is of an
extremely sensitive nature. Satan has taken advantage of these traits
of character and has led you both astray.
Brother D, you have been a bondman for quite a length of time.
Much of that which Sister D has thought was discernment has been
jealousy. She has been disposed to regard everything with a jealous
eye, to be suspicious, surmising evil, distrustful of almost everything.
This causes unhappiness of mind, despondency, and doubt, where faith
and confidence should exist. These unhappy traits of character turn
her thoughts into a gloomy channel, where she indulges a foreboding
of evil, while a highly sensitive temperament leads her to imagine
neglect, slight, and injury, when it does not exist....