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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
The very beginning of the evil was a neglect of watchfulness and
secret prayer, then came a neglect of other religious duties, and thus
the way was opened for all the sins that followed. Every Christian
will be assailed by the allurements of the world, the clamors of the
carnal nature, and the direct temptations of Satan. No one is safe. No
matter what our experience has been, no matter how high our station,
we need to watch and pray continually. We must be daily controlled
by the Spirit of God or we are controlled by Satan.
The Saviour’s instructions to His disciples were given for the
benefit of His followers in every age. He had those in view who were
living near the close of time, when He said: “Take heed to yourselves.”
It is our work, each for himself, to cherish in the heart the precious
graces of the Holy Spirit.
Satan is working with unfailing perseverance and intense energy
to draw into his ranks the professed followers of Christ. He is working
“with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish.” But
Satan is not the only worker by whom the kingdom of darkness is
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supported. Whoever solicits to sin is a tempter. Whoever imitates
the great deceiver becomes his aid. Those who give their influence to
sustain an evil work are doing Satan’s drudgery.
Actions reveal principles and motives. The fruit borne by many
who claim to be plants in the Lord’s vineyard shows them to be but
thorns and briers. A whole church may sanction the wrong course of
some of its members, but that sanction does not prove the wrong to be
right. It cannot make grapes of thorn berries.
If some who profess to believe present truth could understand their
true position, they would despair of the mercy of God. They have
been exerting all their influence against the truth, against the voice of
warning, against the people of God. They have been doing the work
of Satan. Many have become so infatuated by his deceptions that they
will never recover. Such a state of backsliding cannot exist without
causing the loss of many souls.
The church has received warning after warning. The duties and
dangers of God’s people have been plainly revealed. But the worldly
element has proved too strong for them. Customs, practices, and
fashions which lead the soul away from God have been for years
gaining ground in defiance of the warnings and entreaties of the Holy
Spirit, until at last their ways have become right in their own eyes, and