Chapter 38—Accountability for Light
Young men and women, you are accountable to God for the light
that He has given you. This light and these warnings, if not heeded
will rise up in the judgment against you. Your dangers have been
plainly stated; you have been cautioned and guarded on every side,
hedged in with warnings. In the house of God you have listened to
the most solemn, heart-searching truths presented by the servants of
God in demonstration of the Spirit. What weight do these solemn
appeals have upon your hearts? What influence do they have upon
your characters? You will be held responsible for every one of these
appeals and warnings. They will rise up in the judgment to condemn
those who pursue a life of vanity, levity, and pride.
Dear young friends, that which you sow you will also reap. Now
is the sowing time for you. What will the harvest be? What are
you sowing? Every word you utter, every act you perform, is a seed
which will bear good or evil fruit, and will result in joy or sorrow
to the sower. As is the seed sown, so will be the crop. God has
given you great light and many privileges. After this light has been
given, after your dangers have been plainly presented before you,
the responsibility becomes yours. The manner in which you treat
the light that God gives you will turn the scale for happiness or woe.
You are shaping your destinies for yourselves.—Testimonies for the
Church 3:363. [147]
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Chapter 39—Earnestness of Purpose
When the four Hebrew youth were receiving an education for the
king’s court in Babylon, they did not feel that the blessing of the Lord
was a substitute for the taxing effort required of them. They were
diligent in study; for they discerned that through the grace of God
their destiny depended upon their own will and action. They were to
bring all their ability to the work; and by close, severe taxation of
their powers they were to make the most of their opportunities for
study and labor.
Co-operation with God
While these youth were working out their own salvation, God
was working in them to will and to do of His good pleasure. Here
are revealed the conditions of success. To make God’s grace our
own, we must act our part. The Lord does not propose to perform
for us either the willing or the doing. His grace is given to work
in us to will and to do, but never as a substitute for our effort. Our
souls are to be aroused to co-operate. The Holy Spirit works in us,
that we may work out our own salvation. This is the practical lesson
the Holy Spirit is striving to teach us. “It is God which worketh in
you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”
The Lord will co-operate with all who earnestly strive to be
faithful in His service, as He co-operated with Daniel and his three
[148] companions. Fine mental qualities and a high tone of moral character
are not the result of accident. God gives opportunities; success
depends upon the use made of them. The openings of Providence
must be quickly discerned and eagerly entered. There are many who
might become mighty men, if, like Daniel, they would depend upon
God for grace to be overcomers, and for strength and efficiency to
do their work.
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Earnestness of Purpose 135
Whole-hearted Service
I address you, young men: Be faithful. Put heart into your work.
Imitate none who are slothful, and who give divided service. Actions,
often repeated, form habits, habits form character. Patiently perform
the little duties of life. So long as you undervalue the importance
of faithfulness in the little duties, your character-building will be
unsatisfactory. In the sight of Omnipotence, every duty is important.
The Lord has said, “He that is faithful in that which is least is
faithful also in much.” In the life of a true Christian there are no
non-essentials.
Many who claim to be Christians are working at cross-purposes
with God. Many are waiting for some great work to be brought to
them. Daily they lose opportunities for showing their faithfulness to
God; daily they fail of discharging with whole-heartedness the little
duties of life, which seem to them uninteresting. While waiting for
some great work in which they may exercise their supposedly great
talents, and thus satisfy their ambitious longings, their life passes
away.
My dear young friends, do the work that lies nearest at hand.
Turn your attention to some humble line of effort within your reach. [149]
Put mind and heart into the doing of this work. Force your thoughts
to act intelligently on the things that you can do at home. Thus you
will be fitting yourself for greater usefulness. Remember that of
King Hezekiah it is written: “In every work that he began, ... he did
it with all his heart, and prospered.”
The Value of Concentration
The ability to fix the thoughts on the work in hand is a great
blessing. God-fearing youth should strive to discharge their duties
with thoughtful consideration, keeping the thoughts in the right
channel, and doing their best. They should recognize their present
duties, and fulfill them without allowing the mind to wander. This
kind of mental discipline will be helpful and beneficial throughout
life. Those who learn to put thought into everything they undertake,
however small the work may appear, will be of use in the world.
136 Messages to Young People
Dear youth, be earnest, be persevering. “Gird up the loins of
your mind.” Stand like Daniel, the faithful Hebrew, who purposed
in his heart to be true to God. Do not disappoint your parents and
friends. And there is Another to be remembered. Do not disappoint
Him who so loved you that He gave His life to make it possible for
you to be co-laborers with God.
The Highest Motive
The desire to honor God should be to us the most powerful of
all motives. It should lead us to make every exertion to improve the
[150] privileges and opportunities provided for us, that we may understand
how to use wisely the Lord’s goods. It should lead us to keep
brain, bone, muscle, and nerve in the most healthful condition, that
our physical strength and mental clearness may make us faithful
stewards. Selfish interest, if given room to act, dwarfs the mind and
hardens the heart; if allowed to control, it destroys moral power.
Then disappointment comes....
True success is given to men and women by the God who gave
success to Daniel. He who read the heart of Daniel looked with
pleasure upon His servant’s purity of motive, his determination to
honor the Lord. Those who in their life fulfill God’s purpose must put
forth painstaking effort, applying themselves closely and earnestly to
the accomplishment of whatever He gives them to do.—The Youth’s
Instructor, August 20, 1903.
Abiding Joy
And all the way up the steep road leading to eternal life are wellsprings
of joy to refresh the weary. Those who walk in wisdom’s
ways are, even in tribulation, exceeding joyful; for He whom their
soul loveth walks, invisible, beside them. At each upward step they
discern more distinctly the touch of His hand; at every step brighter
gleamings of glory from the Unseen fall upon their path; and their
songs of praise, reaching ever a higher note, ascend to join the songs
of angels before the throne.—Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing,
[151] 140.
Chapter 40—Exercise of the Will
Pure religion has to do with the will. The will is the governing
power in the nature of man, bringing all the other faculties under its
sway. The will is not the taste or the inclination, but it is the deciding
power, which works in the children of men unto obedience to God,
or unto disobedience.
Instability and Doubt
You are a young man of intelligence; you desire to make your
life such as will fit you for heaven at last. You are often discouraged
at finding yourself weak in moral power, in slavery to doubt, and
controlled by the habits and customs of your old life in sin. You find
your emotional nature untrue to yourself, to your best resolutions,
and to your most solemn pledges. Nothing seems real. Your own
instability leads you to doubt the sincerity of those who would do you
good. The more you struggle in doubt, the more unreal everything
looks to you, until it seems that there is no solid ground for you
anywhere. Your promises are like ropes of sand, and you regard in
the same unreal light the words and works of those in whom you
should trust.
Strength Through Yielding the Will
You will be in constant peril until you understand the true force of
the will. You may believe and promise all things, but your promises
or your faith are of no value until you put your will on the side of faith [152]
and action. If you fight the fight of faith with all your will-power,
you will conquer. Your feelings, your impressions, your emotions,
are not to be trusted, for they are not reliable, especially with your
perverted ideas; and the knowledge of your broken promises and
your forfeited pledges weakens your confidence in yourself, and the
faith of others in you.