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Testimonies for the Church Volume 2
your family be deprived of your assistance and influence? Oh, no;
God has carefully removed all doubts upon this question, by a pledge
to you on condition of your obedience. This promise covers all that
the most exacting, the most hesitating, could crave. “Then shall thy
light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth
speedily.” Only believe that He is faithful that hath promised. God
can renew the physical strength. And more, He says He will do it.
And the promise does not end here. “Thy righteousness shall go
before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward.” God will
build a fortification around thee. The promise does not stop even
here. “Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry,
and He shall say, Here I am.” If ye put down oppression and remove
the speaking of vanity, if ye draw out your soul to the hungry, “then
shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday:
and the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in
drought [famine], and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a
watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.”
Read
Isaiah 58
, ye who claim to be children of the light. Espe-
cially do you read it again and again who have felt so reluctant to
inconvenience yourselves by favoring the needy. You whose hearts
and houses are too narrow to make a home for the homeless, read it;
you who can see orphans and widows oppressed by the iron hand
of poverty and bowed down by hardhearted worldlings, read it. Are
you afraid that an influence will be introduced into your family that
will cost you more labor, read it. Your fears may be groundless, and
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a blessing may come, known and realized by you every day. But
if otherwise, if extra labor is called for, you can draw upon One
who has promised: “Then shall thy light break forth as the morning,
and thine health shall spring forth speedily.” The reason why God’s
people are not more spiritually minded and have not more faith, I
have been shown, is because they are narrowed up with selfishness.
The prophet is addressing Sabbathkeepers, not sinners, not unbe-
lievers, but those who make great pretensions to godliness. It is
not the abundance of your meetings that God accepts. It is not the
numerous prayers, but the rightdoing, doing the right thing and at
the right time. It is to be less self-caring and more benevolent. Our
souls must expand. Then God will make them like a watered garden,
whose waters fail not.