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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
of salvation. If any of us are finally saved, it will be by clinging to
Jesus as to the rounds of a ladder. To the believer, Christ is made
wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Let no one
imagine that it is an easy thing to overcome the enemy and that he
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can be borne aloft to an incorruptible inheritance without effort on his
part. To look back is to grow dizzy; to let go the hold is to perish. Few
appreciate the importance of striving constantly to overcome. They
relax their diligence and, as a result, become selfish and self-indulgent.
Spiritual vigilance is not thought to be essential. Earnestness in human
effort is not brought into the Christian life.
There will be some terrible falls by those who think they stand
firm because they have the truth, but they have it not as it is in Jesus. A
moment’s carelessness may plunge a soul into irretrievable ruin. One
sin leads to the second, and the second prepares the way for the third,
and so on. We must, as faithful messengers of God, plead with Him
constantly to be kept by His power. If we swerve a single inch from
duty, we are in danger of following on in a course of sin that will end
in perdition. There is hope for every one of us, but only in one way,
and that is by binding ourselves to Christ, and exerting every energy
to attain to the perfection of His character.
That religion which makes of sin a light matter, dwelling upon the
love of God to the sinner regardless of his actions, only encourages the
sinner to believe that God will receive him while he continues in that
which he knows to be sin. This is what some are doing who profess to
believe present truth. The truth is kept apart from the life, and that is
the reason it has no power to convict and convert the soul.
God has shown me that the truth as it is in Jesus has never been
brought into the lives of some in California. They do not have the
religion of the Bible. They have never been converted; and unless their
hearts are sanctified through the truth which they have accepted, they
will be bound up with the tares; for they bear no clusters of precious
fruit to show that they are branches of the living Vine.
“Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while
He is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man
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his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy
upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” The lives
of many show that they have no living connection with God. They are
drifting into the channel of the world. They have, in reality, no part or