Experience Not Reliable
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desires of their own hearts.
Psalm 81:11, 12
: “But My people would
not hearken to My voice.” “So I gave them up unto their own hearts’
lust: and they walked in their own counsels.”
Those who desire to follow a course which pleases their fancy
are in danger of being left to follow their own inclinations, supposing
them to be the leadings of God’s Spirit. The duty of some is indicated
sufficiently clear by circumstances and facts; but, through the solicita-
tions of friends, in harmony with their own inclinations, they swerve
from the path of duty and pass over the clear evidences in the case;
then, with apparent conscientiousness, they pray long and earnestly for
light. They have earnest feeling in the matter, and they interpret this to
be the Spirit of God. But they are deceived. This course grieves the
Spirit of God. They had light and in the very reason of things should
have understood their duty; but a few pleasing inducements balance
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their minds in the wrong direction, and they urge these before the Lord
and press their case, and the Lord allows them to have their own way.
They have so strong an inclination to follow their own course that He
permits them to do so and to suffer the results. These imagine that
they have a wonderful experience.
My dear sister, firmness is a strong and controlling influence in
your mind. You have acquired strength to stand up and brace against
opposition, and carry through difficult and perplexing enterprises. You
do not love contention. You are highly sensitive and feel deeply. You
are strictly conscientious, and your judgment must be convinced before
you will yield to the opinions of others. Had your physical health been
unimpaired, you would have made an eminently useful woman. You
have long been diseased, and this has affected your imagination so
that your thoughts have been concentrated upon yourself, and the
imagination has affected the body. Your habits have not been good in
many respects. Your food has not been of the right quantity or quality.
You have eaten too largely and of a poor quality of food which could
not be converted into good blood. You have educated the stomach to
this kind of diet. This, your judgment has taught you, was the best,
because you realized the least disturbance from it. But this was not
a correct experience. Your stomach was not receiving that vigor that
it should from your food. Taken in a liquid state your food would
not give healthful vigor or tone to the system. But when you change
this habit, and eat more solids and less liquids, your stomach will feel