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Testimonies for the Church Volume 4
do for them that which He has given them power to do for themselves.
All who are fitted for usefulness in this life must be trained by the
severest mental and moral discipline, and then God will assist them by
combining divine power with human effort.
Many in-----will fail because they do not keep up with the advance-
ment of the work, and do not properly represent in their daily life the
sanctification of the truth. They do not, like Moses, bring their life up
to meet the exalted standard. If they had done this, many more would
now be added to their numbers, rejoicing in the truth. It is a fearful
thing to lead souls away from Christ by our unsanctified life. Our
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religion must be something more than a head religion. It must affect
the heart, and then it will have a correcting influence upon the life.
Wrong habits are not overcome by a single effort. Only through long
and severe struggles is self mastered. This self-training must be taken
up by the individual members of the church, and the rubbish which has
accumulated around the door of the heart must be removed, ere they
can serve God with singleness of purpose, adorning their profession
by a well-ordered life and a godly conversation. Then, and not till
then, can they teach sinners the truth and win souls to Christ.
There are men in this church who feel that they should teach the
truth to others, while they are fretful, impatient, and faultfinding in
their own families. Such need that one teach them, until they become
patient, God-fearing men at home. They need to learn the first princi-
ples of true religion. They should seek God with earnestness of soul,
for they have been a scourge in their families and as a desolating hail to
depress and destroy their brethren. These men do not deserve the name
of husband, “house band;” for they do not bind the family together
with the Christian love, sympathy, and true dignity of a godly life and
Christlike character.
The solemn, sacred truth—the testing message given us of God to
communicate to the world—lays every one of us under the strongest
obligation to so transform our daily life and character that the power of
the truth may be well represented. We should have a continual sense
of the shortness of time and of the fearful events which prophecy has
declared must speedily take place. It is because these truths are not
made a reality that the life is so inconsistent with the truth which we
profess. Many hide in the earth talents which should be invested where
they will be accumulating to be returned to God when He shall say: