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Mind, Character, and Personality Volume 2
your duty to confess your sins. Your faith must be exercised in God
as one that will do just as He has said He would do—pardon all your
transgressions.
How can we know that the Lord is indeed our sin-pardoning
Saviour, and prove the deep blessedness in Him, the great grace and
love He has assured us that He has for the contrite in heart, unless
we believe His word implicitly? Oh, how very many go mourning,
sinning, and repenting, but always under a cloud of condemnation.
They do not believe the word of the Lord. They do not believe that He
will do just as He said He would do.—Lt 10, 1893.
Cause of Doubt—Love of Sin—Disguise it as they may, the real
cause of doubt and skepticism in most cases is the love of sin. The
teachings and restrictions of God’s Word are not welcome to the proud,
sin-loving heart, and those who are unwilling to obey its requirements
[678]
are ready to doubt its authority. In order to arrive at truth we must
have a sincere desire to know the truth and a willingness of heart to
obey it. And all who come in this spirit to the study of the Bible will
find abundant evidence that it is God’s Word, and they may gain an
understanding of its truths that will make them wise unto salvation.—
Steps to Christ, 111
(1892).
Cherished by the Uncircumspect—Doubt and unbelief are cher-
ished by those who do not walk circumspectly. They have a painful
consciousness that their life will not abide the test of the Spirit of God,
whether speaking through His Word or through the testimonies of His
Spirit that would bring them to His Word. Instead of beginning with
their own hearts and coming into harmony with the pure principles of
the gospel, they find fault and condemn the very means that God has
chosen to fit up a people to stand in the day of the Lord.—MS 1, 1883.
(
Selected Messages 1:45
.)
Doubts Entertained Regarded as Assured Facts—The general
method of educating the youth does not meet the standard of true
education. Infidel sentiments are interwoven in the matter placed in
schoolbooks, and the oracles of God are placed in a questionable or
even an objectionable light. Thus the minds of the youth become famil-
iar with Satan’s suggestions, and the doubts once entertained become
to those who entertain them assured facts, and scientific research is
made misleading on account of the way its discoveries are interpreted
and perverted.—
The Youth’s Instructor, January 31, 1895
. (MM 90.)