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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
which he might do with acceptance he leaves for someone else with
less ability than he considers himself to possess. He thinks and talks
of a higher station. He must let his light shine before men; but instead
of grace, meekness, lowliness of mind, kindness, gentleness, and love
shining in his life, self, important self, appears everywhere.
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The spirit of Christ should so control our character and conduct
that our influence may ever bless, encourage, and edify. Our thoughts,
our words, our acts, should testify that we are born of God and that the
peace of Christ rules in our hearts. In this way we throw around us the
gracious radiance of which the Saviour speaks when He enjoins upon
us to let our light shine forth to men. Thus we are leaving a bright
track heaven ward. In this way all who are connected with Christ may
become more effectual preachers of righteousness than by the most
able pulpit effort without this heavenly unction. Those light bearers
shed forth the purest radiance that are the least conscious of their own
brightness, as those flowers diffuse the sweetest fragrance that make
the least display.
Our people are making very dangerous mistakes. We cannot praise
and flatter any man without doing him a great wrong; those who do
this will meet with serious disappointment. They trust too fully to
finite man and not enough to God, who never errs. The eager desire to
urge men into public notice is an evidence of backsliding from God
and of friendship with the world. It is the spirit which characterizes
the present day. It shows that men have not the mind of Jesus; spiritual
blindness and poverty of soul have come upon them. Often persons of
inferior minds look away from Jesus to a merely human standard, by
which they are not made conscious of their own littleness, and hence
have an undue estimate of their own capabilities and endowments.
There is among us as a people an idolatry of human instrumentalities
and mere human talent, and these even of a superficial character. We
must die to self and cherish humble, childlike faith. God’s people have
departed from their simplicity. They have not made God their strength,
and they are weak and faint, spiritually.
I have been shown that the spirit of the world is fast leavening the
church. You are following the same path as did ancient Israel. There
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is the same falling away from your holy calling as God’s peculiar peo-
ple. You are having fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.
Your concord with unbelievers has provoked the Lord’s displeasure.