Safeguarding the New Experience
125
To have an eye single to the glory of God means to have singleness
of purpose, to show forth the work that has been wrought in your heart,
that subdues your will to the will of God, and brings into captivity
every thought to the glory of God. The world has been looking upon
you to see what would be the afterinfluence of the work of revival that
came to the college, the sanitarium, the office of publication, and to
the members of the church in Battle Creek. What testimony have you
borne in your daily life and character?
God expected you all to do your best, not to please, amuse, and glo-
rify yourselves, but to honor Him in all your ways, returning unto Him
according to the light and privileges that He had given you through the
endowment of His grace. He expected you to testify before heavenly
intelligences, and to be living witnesses to the world, of the power of
the grace of Christ. The Lord tested you, to see if you would treat His
rich blessing as a cheap, light matter, or regard it as a rich treasure to
be handled with reverent awe. If all had treated the gift of God in this
manner—for the work was of God—then, according to the measure of
each one’s responsibility, the grace given would have been doubled, as
were the talents of him who traded diligently with his lord’s money.
[140]
A Blessing Turned Into a Curse
God has been testing the fidelity of His people, proving them to
see what use they would make of His intrusted precious blessing. This
blessing came from our Intercessor and Advocate in the heavenly
courts; but Satan was ready to enter any avenue that was open for him,
in order that he might turn the light and blessing into darkness and
cursing.
How may the blessing be turned into a curse? By persuading the
human agent not to cherish the light, or not to reveal to the world that
it has been effective in transforming the character. Imbued with the
Holy Spirit, the human agent consecrates himself to cooperate with
divine agencies. He bears the yoke of Christ, lifts his burdens, and
works in Christ’s line to gain precious victories. He walks in the light
as Christ is in the light. The scripture is fulfilled to him, “We all, with
open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed
into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the
Lord” (
2 Corinthians 3:18
).