Correct School Discipline
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do before they were qualified to be teachers. If Christ’s words were
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received into the soul, there would be a much higher intelligence, and
a much deeper spiritual knowledge of what constitutes one a disciple
and a sincere follower of Christ. When the test and trial comes to
every soul, there will be apostasies. Traitors, heady, highminded and
self-sufficient men will turn away from the truth, making shipwreck
of their faith. Why?—Because they did not dig deep, and make their
foundation sure. They were not riveted to the eternal Rock. When
the words of the Lord, through His chosen messengers, are brought
to them, they murmur and think the way is made too strait. Like
those who were thought to be the disciples of Christ, but who were
displeased by His words, and walked no more with Him, they will turn
away from Christ.
“No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent
Me, draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.” What is the
drawing?—“It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught
of God. Every man therefore that hath heard and hath learned of the
Father, cometh unto Me.” There are men who hear, but who do not
learn the lesson as diligent students. They have a form of godliness,
but are not believers. They know not the truth by practice. They
receive not the engrafted word. “Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and
superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted
word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word,
and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any man be
a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding
his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his
way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.” He did
not receive the impression made upon his mind when comparing his
course of action with the great moral looking-glass. He did not see his
defects of character. He did not reform, and forgetting all about the
impression made, he went not God’s way, but his way, continuing to
be unreformed.
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Hear the only correct way for each human being to do if he would
have a safe, all-round experience. “But whoso looketh into the perfect
law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer,
but a doer of the work, [for there is a work to be done, that is neglected
at the peril of the soul], this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any
man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but