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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
is at the door and calling attention to God’s broken law. But as the
antediluvians rejected with scorn the warning of Noah, so will the
pleasure lovers of today reject the message of God’s faithful servants.
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The world pursues its unvarying round, absorbed as ever in its business
and its pleasures, while the wrath of God is about to be visited on the
transgressors of His law.
Our compassionate Redeemer, foreseeing the perils that would
surround His followers at this time, has given them special warning:
“Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged
with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day
come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that
dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray
always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things
that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.” If the
church pursue a course similar to that of the world, they will share
the same fate. Nay, rather, as they have received greater light, their
punishment will be greater than that of the impenitent.
We as a people profess to have truth in advance of every other peo-
ple upon the earth. Then our life and character should be in harmony
with such a faith. The day is just upon us when the righteous shall be
bound like precious grain in bundles for the heavenly garner, while
the wicked are, like the tares, gathered for the fires of the last great
day. But the wheat and tares “grow together until the harvest.” In the
discharge of life’s duties the righteous will to the last be brought in
contact with the ungodly. The children of light are scattered among
the children of darkness, that the contrast may be seen by all. Thus
are the children of God to “show forth the praises of Him who hath
called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” The divine love
glowing in the heart, the Christ like harmony manifested in the life,
will be as a glimpse of heaven granted to men of the world that they
may see and appreciate its excellence.
Like will attract like. Those who are drinking from the same
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fountain of blessing will draw nearer together. Truth dwelling in
the hearts of believers will lead to blessed and happy assimilation.
Thus will be answered the prayer of Christ that His disciples might
be one even as He is one with the Father. For this oneness every truly
converted heart will be striving.