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Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers
God Must have All the Heart
Let our ministers and workers realize that it is not increased
light that they need from the pulpit, so much as it is to live out the
light they already have. Preaching the solemn truth to the people
today, and then falling into the most abominable practices on the
morrow, or pursuing a crooked course next week, will not answer.
The Searcher of hearts, the One who weighs character, will denounce
every unrighteous action at His great tribunal. “Lord, Thou hast
searched me, and known me. Thou ... art acquainted with all my
ways.” “Thou understandest my thought afar off.” Now consider
this. There is a witness to all your most secret actions, which you
would never do in the presence of men; but because God is unseen
by human eyes, you do before Him things which are an abomination
in His sight, as though He had no knowledge. Now read the claims
of God upon every man and woman: “Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.” He will
not release one atom of His claim; He will not accept half worship
while half the heart is given to some idol.
All
the heart, God requires,
all
the mind. You are not allowed to have the mind diverted from
God and centered upon any other object.
Weighing of Character
God’s claim is placed in one scale, and man’s character in the
other; and by the balances of the heavenly sanctuary every man’s
doom is fixed for eternity. Look at this, you that have lived carelessly
and have regarded sin lightly. For years you have continued without
a sense of your responsibility to God—years of selfish indulgence
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in a forbidden course. Consider the perfect, unchanging character
of the law whose claims you have verbally vindicated. The law
demands perfect, unswerving obedience. In the latter scale is also
placed the sin, the folly, the deception, the unclean thoughts, the
unholy actions; and the preponderance or the lightness of the weight
determines the weal or woe of individuals; and the inscription is
written upon the scale of many, “Thou art weighed in the balances,
and art found wanting.”