Importance of Self-Control
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in eating destroy the healthy tone of the digestive organs, and when
your children come to the table they do not relish wholesome food;
their appetites crave that which is the most hurtful for them. Many
times your children have suffered from fever and ague brought on
by improper eating, when their parents were accountable for their
sickness. It is the duty of parents to see that their children form habits
conducive to health, thereby saving much distress.
Brother H is in danger of apoplexy, and if he continues to disobey
the laws of health, his life will be cut short suddenly. As a family you
can be happy or miserable. It rests with yourselves. Your own course
of action will determine the future. You both need to soften the sharp
points of your characters and to speak such words only as you will
not be ashamed to meet in the day of God. Make it the rule of your
life to go straight forward in the path of duty. In defiance of numerous
temptations which will assail you, be true to a good conscience and to
God, and your pathway will be plain to your feet. You may contend
about little things that are not worthy of contention, and the result will
be trouble. The path of the upright is the path of peace. It is so plain
that the humble, God-fearing man can walk in it without stumbling
and without making crooked paths. It is a narrow path; but men of
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different temperaments can walk side by side if they but follow the
Captain of their salvation. Those who wish to carry along all their evil
traits and selfish habits cannot walk in this path, for it is too straight
and narrow.
What pains the Great Shepherd takes to call His sheep by name
and invite them to follow in His footsteps. He seeks the wandering.
He flashes light from His word to show them their peril. He speaks
to them from heaven in warnings and reproofs, and in invitations to
return to the right path. He seeks to help the erring by His presence
and to lift them when they fall. But many have followed the path of sin
so long that they will not hear the voice of Jesus. They leave all that
can give them rest and security, yield themselves up to a false guide,
and presumptuously hurry on in blind self-confidence, going further
and further from light and peace, from happiness and rest.
I implore you to heed the light which God has given, and reform.
The cross of Christ is our only hope. It reveals to us the greatness of
our Father’s love and the fact that the Majesty of heaven submitted
to insult, mockery, humiliation, and suffering for the joy of seeing