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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
mingling with worldlings, your judgment has become perverted; and
sins which God abhors are tame and harmless in your sight.
I greatly fear that by your self-righteousness you are building
around your souls barriers that nothing can break down. You have
been no nearer to God, no more working His works, no more imbued
with His Spirit, than the professors in the nominal churches. You
have had no real sense of the sacredness of the Sabbath, and God has
not accepted your observance of His holy day. You have had no true
consecration, no sincere devotion. God has not been honored by either
of you; you have not known Him experimentally. You have walked
apart from Him so long that He is nearly a stranger to you. Spiritual
things are spiritually discerned; but you have so long cultivated worldly
tastes and habits that it will not be easy for you to bend your mind in
an opposite direction.
You will feel: “This is an hard saying; who can hear it?” But the
world cannot understand the people of God. There is no harmony
between the children of light and the children of darkness. Paul asks:
“And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that
believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God
with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said,
I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and
they shall be My people. Wherefore come out from among them, and
be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I
will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My
sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” John testifies: “Beloved,
now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall
be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for
we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in Him
purifieth himself, even as He is pure.” “Know ye not that the friendship
of the world is enmity with God?” asks James. “Whosoever therefore
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will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”
Jesus said to His disciples: “If ye love Me, keep My command-
ments. And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another
Comforter, that He may abide with you forever [not a profession of the
truth, not a form of godliness, but]: even the Spirit of truth; whom the
world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him:
but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” “He
that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth