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Appeal to the Church
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depraved. And when they embraced the truth they did not feel the
necessity of turning square about and changing their whole course
of action. They have been for years following the inclinations of an
unregenerate heart, and have been swayed by the corrupt passions
of their carnal natures, which had defaced the image of God in them
and defiled everything they touched; therefore their entire future
life would be all too short, at the longest, to climb Peter’s ladder of
Christian perfection, preparatory to their entering into the kingdom
of God. But there are not many who feel that they cannot be saved
by a profession of the truth, unless they become sanctified through
the truth in answer to the prayer of our divine Lord to His Father:
“Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth.”
Men and women who profess to be disciples of Christ and to
keep all the commandments of God will have to feel in their daily
lives the true spirit of agonizing to enter in at the strait gate. The
agonizing ones are the only ones who will urge their passage through
the strait gate and narrow way that lead to life eternal, to fullness of
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joy and pleasures forevermore. Those who merely seek to enter in
will never be able. The entire Christian life of many will be spent in
no greater effort than that of seeking, and their only reward will be
to find it an utter impossibility for them to enter in at that strait gate.
I have been surprised to see how many families are blinded
by Satan so that they have no sense of his workings, his wiles
and deceptions, practiced in their very midst. Parents seem to be
stupefied by the paralyzing influence of the evil one, and yet think
they are all right. I have been shown that Satan seeks to debase the
minds of those who unite in marriage, that he may stamp his own
hateful image upon their children. Because they have entered into
the marriage relation, many think that they may permit themselves
to be controlled by animal passions. They are led on by Satan,
who deceives them and leads them to pervert this sacred institution.
He is well pleased with the low level which their minds take; for
he has much to gain in this direction. He knows that if he can
excite the baser passions, and keep them in the ascendancy, he has
nothing to be troubled about in their Christian experience; for the
moral and intellectual faculties will be subordinate, while the animal
propensities will predominate and keep in the ascendancy; and these