Chapter 4—This is Pure Religion
Pure Religion Defined—What is pure religion? Christ has told
us that pure religion is the exercise of pity, sympathy, and love in the
home, in the church, and in the world. This is the kind of religion to
teach to the children, and is the genuine article. Teach them that they
are not to center their thoughts upon themselves, but that wherever
there is human need and suffering, there is a field for missionary
work.—
The Review and Herald, November 12, 1895
.
Pure religion and undefiled before the Father is this: “To visit the
fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted
from the world.” Good deeds are the fruit that Christ requires us to
bear: kind words, deeds of benevolence, of tender regard for the poor,
the needy, the afflicted. When hearts sympathize with hearts burdened
with discouragement and grief, when the hand dispenses to the needy,
when the naked are clothed, the stranger made welcome to a seat in
your parlor and a place in your heart, angels are coming very near, and
an answering strain is responded to in heaven.—
Testimonies for the
Church 2:25
.
ISAIAH 58—A DIVINE PRESCRIPTION The Chapter That Defines
Our Work.—The whole of the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah is to be
re
¬
garded as a message for this time, to be given over and over
again.—Special Testimonies, series B, no. 2, p. 5. What saith the Lord
in the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah? The whole chapter is of the
highest impor
¬
tance.—Testimonies, vol. 8, p. 159.
God’s Test of Our Religion—I have been shown some things in
reference to our duty to the unfortunate which I feel it my duty to write
at this time.
I saw that it is in the providence of God that widows and orphans,
the blind, the deaf, the lame, and persons afflicted in a variety of ways
have been placed in close Christian relationship to His church; it is to
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prove His people and develop their true character. Angels of God are
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