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Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers
holiness corresponding with the light given them. Anything short of
this, God will not accept.
But these great manifestations by God should never lull to secu-
rity or carelessness. They should never give license to licentiousness,
or cause the recipients to feel that God will not be critical with them,
because they think He is dependent on their ability and knowledge
to act a part in the great work. All these advantages given by God
are His means to throw ardor into the spirit, zeal into effort, and
rigor into the carrying out of His holy will.
You, my brethren, fold your hands, and drift into evil practices,
and then wait for God to work a miracle to change your characters
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and compel you to be pure and holy men. Will you expose yourselves
wantonly to temptation, expecting God to force your mind and
inclinations that you may not be corrupted? Will you take the viper to
your bosom, expecting God to put a spell upon it so it will not poison
you with its venomous sting? Will you drink poison, expecting God
to provide an antidote?
Be God’s Men
While, under God, we are to use means in the saving of our own
souls, we are not to depend on what we can do alone, thinking that
will be able to save us. While we must work with heart and soul and
might, we must do it all in and through Jesus. But truth as it is in
Jesus must be brought into the heart and into the life, into the home
and into the church. God will use the channels He has provided for
the flowing through of His grace.
Oh, that my brethren would be
men
according to God’s estimate
of men, and take their places in the great web of humanity, realizing
that they are a part of God’s great whole in creation, in redemp-
tion!
Only be men
, and then you make a decided advance in being
Christians.
The means is provided, and no one will have any excuse for
sin. If you fail of overcoming, there are reasons for this. Ye will
not obey God’s revealed will; ye will not pray; ye will not strive;
ye will not fight evil habits and unholy thoughts. Are ye stronger
than God? Can ye, dare ye, contend with the Eternal? If you are
not proof against God’s judgments, proof against His vengeance,