1964 Awake! - Theocratic Collector.com

YOUR LOVE
IONEST-HEARTED persons are dismayed by the world's
moral breakdown. They long for righteousness instead
of wickedness. How encouraging it is, then, to have
learned what God's remedy is: the destruction of
wickedness in our day and the ushering in of the righteous
rule of His kingdom over a paradise earth!
Are you among those who are disgusted with the prevalence
of immorality? Do you, too, long for righteous conditions?
Do you want to live forever in God's new order,
free from all wickedness? If so, you will be keenly interested
in knowing what God's standards of morality are.
However, knowing what God's standards are is not
enough by itself. They must be adhered to now if you
want to please God and come in line for his blessings.
A housewife can know about cooking from a cookbook,
but if she never puts this knowledge to work, she could
hardly call herself a cook. The same principle applies in
pleasing God. Knowledge of his standards is vital, it is
true, but those standards must be put to use in your daily
living. Jesus showed action was needed when he stated:
"He that exercises faith in me, that one also will do the
works that I do .... If you love me, you will observe my
commandments."-John 14:12, 15.
This is where the real test comes. Will you deplore Wlrighteousness,
yet not bring your own course of life into
harmony with God's standards? Will you just talk about
what is right or will you live it? You have God's written
Word as the sOWld guide for your moral integrity. It
enables you to know for a certainty what is right and
what is wrong. It clearly tells you what you must do to
receive God's favor. But when you learn these truths,
will you perform them?
Do not be like one group of people mentioned in the
28
Bible. Yes, they took in knowledge, but that is all
they did! Note what the Word of God says of these
persons: "They will ... sit before you as my people;
and they will certainly hear your words but these
they will not do, for with their mouth they are ex­
pressing lustful desires and after their unjust gain
is where their heart is go­
teonsness
ing. And, look! you are to
them like a song of sensuous
loves, like one with a
pretty voice and playing a
stringed instrument well.
And they will certainly
hear your words, but there
are none doing them."
(Ezek. 33:31, 32) No, do
not be like those people. Do
not learn what is bad but
then refuse to do what is
good. Prove your love of
righteousness by learning
what is right and then by
doing it.
Take a lesson from a man
spoken of favorably in the
Bible, the patriarch Noah.
When Jesus Christ foretold
our critical times and
showed they would mark
"the time of the end," he
said we should learn a lesson
from a similar time in
world history, the time in
which Noah lived. (Matt.
24:37) Of Noah's days the
Bible says: "The badness of
man was abWldant in the
earth and every inclination
of the thoughts of his heart
was only bad all the time.
. . . and the earth became
filled with violence." (Gen.
6:5, 11) As a result, God
decreed that world's destruction.
But what of Noah
and his family? The Bible
AWAKEI