Testimony Treasures, Volume 1 - Ellen G. White

this respect. I saw that the language of their lives is: Self must be gratified,
pride must be indulged. They forget the Man of Sorrows, who was
acquainted with grief. The sufferings of Jesus in Gethsemane, His sweating
as it were great drops of blood in the garden, the platted crown of thorns that
pierced His holy brow, do not move them. They have become benumbed.
Their sensibilities are blunted, and they have lost all sense of the great
sacrifice made for them. They can sit and listen to the story of the cross, hear
how the cruel nails were driven through the hands and feet of the Son of
God, and it does not stir the depths of the soul.
Said the angel: "If such should be ushered into the city of God, and told
that all its rich beauty and glory was theirs to enjoy eternally, they would
have no sense of how dearly that inheritance was purchased for them. They
would never realize the matchless depths of a Saviour's love. They have not
drunk of the cup, nor been baptized with the baptism. Heaven would be
marred if such should dwell there. Those only who have partaken of the
sufferings of the Son of God, and have come up through great tribulation,
and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,
can enjoy the indescribable glory and unsurpassed beauty of heaven."
The want of this necessary preparation will shut out the greater portion
of young professors, for they will not labor earnestly and zealously enough
to obtain that rest that remains for the people of God. They will not honestly
confess their sins, that they may be pardoned and blotted out. These sins in a
short time will be revealed in just their enormity. God's eye does not
slumber. He knows every sin that is hidden from mortal eye. The guilty
know just what sins to confess that their souls may be clean before God.
Jesus is now giving them opportunity to confess, to repent in deep humility,
and purify their lives by obeying and living out the truth. Now is the time for
wrongs to be righted and sins to be confessed, or they will appear before the
sinner in the day of God's wrath.
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