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Testimonies for the Church Volume 4
condemnation and provokes the divine displeasure. The thoughts of
the heart are discerned of God. When impure thoughts are cherished,
they need not be expressed by word or act to consummate the sin and
bring the soul into condemnation. Its purity is defiled, and the tempter
has triumphed.
Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lusts and
enticed. He is turned away from the course of virtue and real good by
following his own inclinations. If the youth possessed moral integrity,
the strongest temptations might be presented in vain. It is Satan’s act
to tempt you, but your own act to yield. It is not in the power of all the
host of Satan to force the tempted to transgress. There is no excuse for
sin.
While some of the youth are wasting their powers in vanity and
folly, others are disciplining their minds, storing up knowledge, girding
on the armor to engage in life’s warfare, determined to make it a
success. But they cannot make life a success, however high they may
attempt to climb, unless they center their affections upon God. If they
will turn to the Lord with all the heart, rejecting the flatteries of those
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who would in the slightest degree weaken their purpose to do right,
they will have strength and confidence in God.
Those who love society frequently indulge this trait until it be-
comes an overruling passion. To dress, to visit places of amusement,
to laugh and chat upon subjects altogether lighter than vanity—this
is the object of their lives. They cannot endure to read the Bible and
contemplate heavenly things. They are miserable unless there is some-
thing to excite. They have not within them the power to be happy,
but they depend for happiness upon the company of other youth as
thoughtless and reckless as themselves. The powers which might be
turned to noble purposes they give to folly and mental dissipation.
The youth who finds joy and happiness in reading the word of God
and in the hour of prayer is constantly refreshed by drafts from the
Fountain of life. He will attain a height of moral excellence and a
breadth of thought of which others cannot conceive. Communion with
God encourages good thoughts, noble aspirations, clear perceptions
of truth, and lofty purposes of action. Those who thus connect their
souls with God are acknowledged by Him as His sons and daughters.
They are constantly reaching higher and still higher, obtaining clearer