From Eternity Past

Dangers of Ungodly Associates

By leading the followers of Christ to associate with the ungodly and unite in their amusements, Satan is most successful in alluring them into sin. God requires of His people now as great a distinction from the world in customs, habits, and principles as He required of Israel anciently. The warnings given the Hebrews against assimilating with the heathen were not more explicit than are those forbidding Christians to conform to the spirit and customs of the ungodly. We cannot be too decided in shunning the company of those who exert an influence to draw us away from God. While we pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” we are to shun temptation so far as possible. EP 324.2

When the Israelites were in ease and security they were led into sin. Ease and self-indulgence left the citadel of the soul unguarded, and debasing thoughts found entrance. Traitors within the walls overthrew the strongholds of principle and betrayed Israel into the power of Satan. It is thus that Satan seeks to ruin the soul. A long preparatory process, unknown to the world, goes on in the heart before the Christian commits open sin. The mind does not come down at once from purity and holiness to depravity, corruption, and crime. By the indulgence of impure thoughts, sin once loathed will become pleasant. EP 324.3

We cannot walk the streets of our cities without encountering flaring notices of crime to be presented in some novel, or to be acted at some theater. The course pursued by the base and vile is kept before the people in periodicals, and everything that can excite passion is brought before them in exciting stories. They hear so much of debasing crime that the conscience becomes hardened, and they dwell upon these things with greedy interest. EP 325.1

Many amusements popular with those who claim to be Christians tend to the same end as did those of the heathen. Through the drama Satan has worked for ages to excite passion and glorify vice. The opera, the dance, the card table, Satan employs to open the door to sensual indulgence. In every gathering for pleasure where pride is fostered or appetite indulged, where one is led to forget God and lose sight of eternal interests, there Satan is binding his chains about the soul. EP 325.2