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Testimonies for the Church Volume 4
hold in faith to correct the defects marked out in your character. You
have not humbled your proud spirit before God. You have stood at
warfare against the Spirit of God as revealed in reproof. Your carnal,
unsubdued heart is not subject to control. You have not disciplined
yourself. Time and again your uncontrolled temper, your spirit of
insubordination, has gained complete mastery over you. How can such
an impulsive, unsubdued soul live among the pure angels? It cannot
be admitted into heaven, as you yourself know. If so, you cannot begin
too soon to correct the evil in your nature. Be converted, and become
as a little child.
Brother, you are proud-spirited, lofty in your thoughts and ideas
of yourself. All this must be put away. Your relatives have learned
to fear these outbreaks of temper. Your tender, God-fearing mother
has done her best to soothe and indulge you, and has tried to remove
every cause that would produce this self-rising, this uncontrollable
disposition in her son. But coaxing, pleading, and seeking to pacify
have led you to consider that this impulsive temper is incurable and
that it is the duty of your friends to bear with it. All this petting and
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excusing has not remedied the evil, but rather given it license.
You have not fought with this wicked spirit and conquered it. When
your way has been crossed you have felt the provocation sufficiently
to forget your manhood and that you were created in the image of God
and after His likeness. You have sadly defaced and marred that image.
You have not had self-control nor power over your will. You have been
headstrong, and have yielded to the power of Satan. Every time that
you have given up to passion and self-rule, and let your feelings run
away with your judgment, it has strengthened that set, uncontrolled
will. The Lord saw that you did not know yourself, and that unless you
saw yourself and the sinfulness of your course in the true light; unless
you saw how aggravating in the sight of God were these outbreaks of
temper which strengthened at every exhibition, you would surely fail
of gaining a seat by the side of the suffering Man of Calvary.
God calls upon you, Brother G, to repent and be converted, and
become as a little child. Unless the truth has a sanctifying influence
upon your life to mold your character, you will fail of an inheritance
in the kingdom of God. The Lord in His providence selected you to be
more directly connected with His cause and work. He took you, like
an undisciplined soldier, new to the army, and brought you under rules,