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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
Shall we let this be? Is the dull torpor, the mournful deterioration
in love and spiritual zeal, to be perpetuated? Is this the condition in
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which Christ is to find His church?
Brethren, your own lamps will surely flicker and grow dim until
they go out in darkness unless you make decided efforts to reform.
“Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and
do the first works.” The opportunity now presented may be short. If
this season of grace and repentance passes unimproved, the warning is
given: “I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick
out of his place.” These words are uttered by the lips of the long-
suffering, forbearing One. They are a solemn warning to churches and
individuals that the Watcher who never slumbers is measuring their
course of action. It is only by reason of His marvelous patience that
they are not cut down as cumberers of the ground. But His Spirit will
not always strive. His patience will wait but little longer.
Your faith must be something more than it has been, or you will be
weighed in the balances and found wanting. At the last day the final
decision by the Judge of all the earth will turn upon our interest in, and
practical labor for, the needy, the oppressed, the tempted. You cannot
always pass these by on the other side and yourselves find entrance as
redeemed sinners into the city of God. “Inasmuch,” says Christ, “as
ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me.”
It is not yet too late to redeem the neglects of the past. Let there
be a revival of the first love, the first ardor. Search out the ones you
have driven away, bind up by confession the wounds you have made.
Come close to the great Heart of pitying love, and let the current of
that divine compassion flow into your heart and from you to the hearts
of others. Let the tenderness and mercy that Jesus has revealed in
His own precious life be an example to us of the manner in which we
should treat our fellow beings, especially those who are our brethren
in Christ. Many have fainted and become discouraged in the great
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struggle of life, whom one word of kindly cheer and courage would
have strengthened to overcome. Never, never become heartless, cold,
unsympathetic, and censorious. Never lose an opportunity to say a
word to encourage and inspire hope. We cannot tell how far-reaching
may be our tender words of kindness, our Christlike efforts to lighten
some burden. The erring can be restored in no other way than in the
spirit of meekness, gentleness, and tender love.