Seite 385 - Testimonies for the Church Volume 1 (1868)

Das ist die SEO-Version von Testimonies for the Church Volume 1 (1868). Klicken Sie hier, um volle Version zu sehen

« Vorherige Seite Inhalt Nächste Seite »
Chapter 75—Walk in the Light
I was shown that God’s people dwell too much under a cloud. It is
not His will that they should live in unbelief. Jesus is light, and in Him
is no darkness at all. His children are the children of light. They are
[406]
renewed in His image, and called out of darkness into His marvelous
light. He is the light of the world, and so also are they that follow
Him. They shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
The more closely the people of God strive to imitate Christ, the more
perseveringly will they be pursued by the enemy; but their nearness
to Christ strengthens them to resist the efforts of our wily foe to draw
them from Christ.
I was shown that there was too much comparing ourselves among
ourselves, taking fallible mortals for a pattern, when we have a sure,
unerring pattern. We should not measure ourselves by the world, nor
by the opinions of men, nor by what we were before we embraced the
truth. But our faith and position in the world, as they now are, must
be compared with what they would have been if our course had been
continually onward and upward since we professed to be followers of
Christ. This is the only safe comparison that can be made. In every
other there will be self-deception. If the moral character and spiritual
state of God’s people do not correspond with the blessings, privileges,
and light which have been conferred upon them, they are weighed in
the balance, and angels make the report, Wanting.
With some the knowledge of their true state seems to be hidden
from them. They see the truth, but perceive not its importance or its
claims. They hear the truth, but do not fully understand it, because
they do not conform their lives to it, and therefore are not sanctified
through obeying it. And yet they rest as unconcerned and well satisfied
as though the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, as token
of God’s favor, went before them. They profess to know God, but
in works deny Him. They reckon themselves His chosen, peculiar
people, yet His presence and power to save to the uttermost are seldom
manifested among them. How great is the darkness of such! yet they
381