Conformity to the World
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only cause you greater anguish, and your punishment will be greater
because ye knew His will, but did it not.”
Those who profess to believe the third angel’s message often
wound the cause of God by lightness, joking, and trifling. I was shown
that this evil was all through our ranks. There should be a humbling
before the Lord; the Israel of God should rend the heart, and not the
garment. Childlike simplicity is rarely seen; the approbation of man
is more thought of than the displeasure of God. Said the angel: “Set
your heart in order, lest He visit you in judgment, and the brittle thread
of life be cut, and ye lie down in the grave unsheltered, unprepared for
the judgment. Or if ye do not make your bed in the grave, unless ye
soon make your peace with God, and tear yourselves from the world,
your hearts will grow harder, and ye will lean upon a false prop, a
supposed preparation, and find out your mistake too late to secure a
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well-grounded hope.”
I saw that some professed Sabbathkeepers spend hours that are
worse than thrown away, in studying this or that fashion to decorate the
poor, mortal body. While you make yourselves appear like the world,
and as beautiful as you can, remember that the same body may in a
few days be food for worms. And while you adorn it to your taste, to
please the eye, you are dying spiritually. God hates your vain, wicked
pride, and He looks upon you as a whited sepulcher, full of corruption
and uncleanness within.
Mothers set the example of pride for their children, and, by so
doing, sow seed that will spring up and bear fruit. The harvest will be
plenteous and sure. That which they sow, they shall reap. There will
be no failure in the crop. I saw, parents, that it is easier for you to teach
your children a lesson of pride, than a lesson of humility. Satan and his
angels stand right by your side to make the act of yours, or the word
that you speak to them, effectual to encourage them to dress, and in
their pride to mingle with society that is not holy. O parents, you plant
in your own bosoms a thorn that you will often feel in anguish. When
you would counteract the sad lesson you have taught your children,
you will find it a hard thing. It is impossible for you to do this. You
may deny them things that would gratify their pride, yet it still lives in
the heart, longing to be satisfied; and nothing can kill this pride but
the quick and powerful Spirit of God. When this finds its way to the
heart, it will work like leaven there and root it out.