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Testimonies for the Church Volume 3
in the valley of decision have taken their position in the ranks of the
enemy and become enemies of God and the truth. And the record of
the unfaithfulness of the professed followers of Jesus has gone up to
heaven.
I was shown that if the youth at Battle Creek were true to their
profession, they might exert a strong influence for good over their
fellow youth. But a large share of the youth at Battle Creek need a
Christian experience. They know not God by experimental knowledge.
They have not individually a personal experience in the Christian
life, and they must perish with the unbelieving unless they obtain this
experience. The youth of this class follow inclination rather than duty.
Some do not seek to be governed by principle. They do not agonize
to enter in at the strait gate, trembling with fear lest they will not be
able. They are confident, boastful, proud, disobedient, unthankful, and
unholy. Just such a class as this lead souls in the broad road to ruin.
If Christ is not in them, they cannot exemplify Him in their lives and
characters.
The church at Battle Creek have had great light. As a people
they have been peculiarly favored of God. They have not been left in
ignorance in regard to the will of God concerning them. They might
be far in advance of what they now are, if they had walked in the light.
They are not that separate, peculiar, and holy people that their faith
demands, and that God recognizes and acknowledges as children of
the light. They are not as obedient and devotional as their exalted
position and sacred obligation as children walking in the light require
them to be. The most solemn message of mercy ever given to the
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world has been entrusted to them. The Lord has made that church the
depositaries of His commandments in a sense that no other church
is. God did not show them His special favor in trusting to them His
sacred truth that they alone might be benefited by the light given, but
that the light reflected upon them from heaven should shine forth to
others and be reflected again to God by those who receive the truth
glorifying Him. Many in Battle Creek will have a fearful account to
give in the day of God for this sinful neglect of duty.
Many of those who profess to believe the truth in Battle Creek
contradict their faith by their works. They are as unbelieving, and
as far from fulfilling the requirements of God and from coming up
to their profession of faith, as was the Jewish church at the time of