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Selected Messages Book 1
with contrition. It reaches out to transform the sinner into an obedient,
faithful child of God; but not a soul can be saved if he continues in sin.
Sin is the transgression of the law, and the arm that is now mighty
to save will be strong to punish when the transgressor passes the
bounds that limit divine forbearance. He who refuses to seek for life,
who will not search the Scriptures to see what is truth, lest he should
be condemned in his practices, will be left to blindness of mind and
to the deceptions of Satan. To the same degree that the penitent and
obedient are shielded by God’s love, the impenitent and disobedient
will be left to the result of their own ignorance and hardness of heart,
because they receive not the love of the truth that they may be saved.
There are many who profess Christ, but who never become mature
Christians. They admit that man is fallen, that his faculties are weak-
ened, that he is unfitted for moral achievement, but they say that Christ
has borne all the burden, all the suffering, all the self-denial, and they
are willing to let Him bear it. They say that there is nothing for them
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to do but to believe; but Christ said, “If any man will come after me,
let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (
Matthew
16:24
). Jesus kept the commandments of God. The Pharisees declared
that He broke the fourth commandment because He made a man every
whit whole on the Sabbath day; but Jesus turned to the accusing Phar-
isees, and asked, “Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to
do evil? to save life, or to destroy it? And looking round about upon
them all, he said unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so:
and his hand was restored whole as the other. And they were filled
with madness; and communed one with another what they might do to
Jesus” (
Luke 6:9-11
).
This miracle, instead of convincing the Pharisees that Jesus was
the Son of God, filled them with rage, because many who witnessed
the miracle glorified God. Jesus declared that His work of mercy
was lawful on the Sabbath day. The Pharisees declared that it was
not lawful. Which shall we believe? Christ said, “I have kept my
Father’s commandments, and abide in his love” (
John 15:10
). Then
it is certainly safe for us to follow the way of Christ, and keep the
commandments. God has given us faculties which should be constantly
exercised in cooperating with Jesus, in working out our own salvation
with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in us to will and to
do of His good pleasure.