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Kept in the Love of the Truth, May 4
Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with
them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
2 Timothy 2:22
.
Our young people need to be surrounded with wholesome, uplifting influences.
They are to be kept in the love of the truth. The standard set before them should
be high. Some feel a desire to be left without restraint, that they may do as they
please.... The fathers and mothers ... in the church are under sacred obligation to
watch for the souls of their children as they that must give an account. Let none,
neither parents nor the youth, begin to believe that amusements are essential, and
that a careless disregard of the Holy Spirit during hours of selfish pleasure is to
be lightly regarded. God will not be mocked. Let every young man, every young
woman, consider, “Am I prepared today for my life to close? Have I the heart
preparation that fits me to do the work which the Lord has given me to do?”
Every youth should make God’s Word his guide and daily gather from the
Word the instruction that is given. If some refuse to be guided by this instruction,
they are sowing seeds that the enemy has placed in their hands, and they will not
care to reap the harvest of the seeds sown....
There are many things which are right in themselves, but which, perverted
by Satan, prove a snare to the unwary. The gathering together of our youth for a
singing exercise sounds very harmless, but it has been my experience, during half
a century, that these singing exercises often prove a source of much harm to souls.
If the hearts of all who attend were right with God; if all loved God supremely,
and desired to keep His glory in view; if all would strive to please Him, then such
exercises would not prove harmful. But usually there are present many who do not
realize that they are becoming more and still more unconcerned regarding their
duty to please God. Their souls become indifferent. One has an influence over
another, and the indifference manifested toward spiritual things increases. God’s
Holy Word is not studied diligently day by day, and because of lack of spiritual
food, they grow weak in moral power....
Oh, that every member, every worker, might realize that this life is a school
in which to prepare for examination by the God of heaven with regard to purity,
cleanness of thought, unselfishness of action. Every word and act, every thought,
is recorded on the record books of heaven.—
Letter 144, May 4, 1906
, to the
church in Mountain View, California.
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