Testimonies for the Church Vol 1 - Lansing SDA Church

Chapter 27—Young SabbathkeepersAugust 22, 1857, at the house of prayer in Monterey, Michigan, Iwas shown that many have not yet heard the voice of Jesus, and thesaving message has not taken hold of the soul and worked a reformationin the life. Many of the young have not the spirit of Jesus. The love ofGod is not in their hearts, therefore all the natural besetments hold thevictory instead of the Spirit of God and salvation.Those who really possess the religion of Jesus will not be ashamednor afraid to bear the cross before those who have more experiencethan they. They will, if they earnestly long to be right, desire all thehelp they can get from older Christians. Gladly will they be helpedby them; hearts that are warmed by love to God will not be hinderedby trifles in the Christian course. They will talk out what the Spiritof God works in. They will sing it out, pray it out. It is the lack ofreligion, lack of holy living, that makes the young backward. Theirlife condemns them. They know they do not live as Christians should,therefore they have not confidence toward God, or before the church.Why the young feel more liberty when the older ones are absentis: They are with those of their kind. Each thinks he is as good as theother. All fail of the mark, but measure themselves by themselves, andcompare themselves among themselves, and neglect the only perfect [155]and true standard. Jesus is the true Pattern. His self-sacrificing life isour example.I saw how little the Pattern was studied, how little exalted beforethem. How little do the young suffer, or deny self, for their religion!To sacrifice is scarcely thought of among them. They entirely fail ofimitating the Pattern in this respect. I saw that the language of theirlives is: Self must be gratified, pride must be indulged. They forgetthe Man of Sorrows, who was acquainted with grief. The sufferingsof Jesus in Gethsemane, His sweating as it were great drops of bloodin the garden, the platted crown of thorns that pierced His holy brow,do not move them. They have become benumbed. Their sensibilitiesare blunted, and they have lost all sense of the great sacrifice made for149