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Mind, Character, and Personality Volume 1
Source of the Issues of Life or Death—“Set your affection on
things above, not on things on the earth” (
Colossians 3:2
). The heart
is the citadel of the man. From it are the issues of life or death. Until
the heart is purified, a person is unfit to have any part in the fellowship
of the saints. Does not the Heart Searcher know who are lingering in
sin, regardless of their souls? Has there not been a witness to the most
secret things in the life of everyone?
I was compelled to hear the words spoken by some men to women
and girls—words of flattery, words that would deceive and infatuate.
Satan uses all these means to destroy souls. Some of you may thus
have been his agents; and if so, you will have to meet these things in
the judgment. The angel said of this class. “Their hearts have never
[75]
been given to God. Christ is not in them. Truth is not there. Its place
is occupied by sin, deception, and falsehood. The Word of God is
not believed and acted upon.”—
Testimonies for the Church 5:536,
537
(1889).
Ease, Self-indulgence, Security—Traitors Within the Walls—
It was when the Israelites were in a condition of outward ease and
security that they were led into sin. They failed to keep God ever before
them, they neglected prayer and cherished a spirit of self-confidence.
Ease and self-indulgence left the citadel of the soul unguarded, and
debasing thoughts found entrance. It was the traitors within the walls
that overthrew the strongholds of principle and betrayed Israel into the
power of Satan.
It is thus that Satan still seeks to compass the ruin of the soul. A
long preparatory 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).
Tobacco Benumbs the Sensibilities—Tobacco, in whatever form
it is used, tells upon the constitution. It is a slow poison. It affects
the brain and benumbs the sensibilities so that the mind cannot clearly
discern spiritual things, especially those truths which would have a
tendency to correct this filthy indulgence.