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Testimonies for the Church Volume 3
The prophet, in words of glowing fervor, magnifies God in His
created works: “When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers,
the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; what is man, that
Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?”
“O Lord our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth! I will
praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will show forth all Thy
marvelous works.”
It is absence of religion that makes the path of so many professors
of religion shadowy. There are those who may pass for Christians
but who are unworthy the name. They have not Christian characters.
When their Christianity is put to the test, its falsity is too evident. True
religion is seen in the daily deportment. The life of the Christian is
characterized by earnest, unselfish working to do others good and to
glorify God. His path is not dark and gloomy. An inspired writer has
said: “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more
and more unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is as darkness:
they know not at what they stumble.”
And shall the young live vain and thoughtless lives of fashion and
frivolity, dwarfing their intellect to the matter of dress and consuming
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their time in sensual pleasure? When they are all unready, God may
say to them: “This night your folly shall end.” He may permit mortal
sickness to come upon those who have borne no fruit to His glory.
While facing the realities of eternity, they may begin to realize the
value of time and of the life they have lost. They may then have
some sense of the worth of the soul. They see that their lives have not
glorified God in lighting the path of others to heaven. They have lived
to glorify self. And when racked with pain and with anguish of soul
they cannot have clear conceptions of eternal things. They may review
their past lives, and in their remorse may each cry out: “I have done
nothing for Jesus, who has done everything for me. My life has been a
terrible failure.”
While you pray, dear youth, that you may not be led into tempta-
tion, remember that your work does not end with the prayer. You must
then answer your own prayer as far as possible by resisting temptation,
and leave that which you cannot do for yourselves for Jesus to do for
you. You cannot be too guarded in your words and in your deportment,
lest you invite the enemy to tempt you. Many of our youth, by their
careless disregard of the warnings and reproofs given them, open the