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The Youth’s Instructor

113/477

November 23, 1893

Words to the Young

EGW

The history of nations is the strongest evidence of the verity of God's word. Those who have regarded with indifference the word of God, bear the signature of the earthliness of all their acquirements and pursuits. Equity, truth, order, purity, peace, follow in the track of all who practice the teachings of Christ as contained in the Old and New Testaments. The real doers of the word of God are described as those who draw out their souls to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul. God speaks in his word, and let every one listen to his voice. He who has educated himself in such a way that he gives credence to the sophistry of Satan, and who thinks it is a mark of high intelligence to boast of his skepticism and infidelity, needs to become a fool in the eyes of the worldly wise, in order that he may have the true wisdom that cometh down from the source of all wisdom. To argue with persons who are established in infidel principles, is of no avail; for as fast as you overthrow one point, Satan suggests to them another criticism. YI November 23, 1893, par. 1

“The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field; the grass withereth, the flower fadeth; because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever.... Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counselor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. To whom will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him? ... Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in: that bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity. Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown; yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.... Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fail: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” YI November 23, 1893, par. 2

The time is not far distant when there will be no one to lift up his head and voice in pride, saying, I am an infidel. How is it that men make this boast, and walk in false paths? Life and death are set before them. If men do not continually seek for higher good, if they do not appropriate the precious promises, warnings, and reproofs in the word of God, they will not be refined and ennobled. The bewitching power of Satan will take control of the mind, and they will use the God-given faculties to serve the natural evil desires of the mind. If men do not grow in grace, they will grow in worldliness and sin. Every evil inclination gratified, every action of the person, leaves its impress upon the soul, and is revealed in the character. The conversation we have by the fireside, the books we read, the business we transact, are all agents in forming our characters, and day by day decide our eternal destiny. YI November 23, 1893, par. 3

Every one who neglects to read and search the Scriptures is in danger; for he loses the hidden treasures of truth. To take up fictitious stories, the fruits of somebody's imagination, is to lay the mind open to the bewitching power of Satan; and this kind of reading creates an unnatural appetite for fictitious stories, from which no moral strength is derived. Fictitious stories leave the mind and heart as destitute of the grace of God as were the hills of Gilboa of dew and rain. Let every one who claims to be a child of God, burn the magical books. If the mind is filled with that which is like to chaff, only chaff will come forth from the mind. YI November 23, 1893, par. 4

Books from the pens of infidels should have no place in the libraries of those who would serve God. They will make better kindling material for your stove, than food for the mind. Infidel books have been a cause of ruin to many souls. Men have studied these books of Satan's inspiration, and they have become confused in regard to what was truth. Satan stands at the side of him who opens an infidel book, and he will educate the mind that peruses such literature, and so bewitch the soul that it will be almost impossible to break the infatuation. YI November 23, 1893, par. 5

Let no believer flatter himself that his mountain standeth sure, and that he will never be moved away from his position of faith. No confidence can be placed in human nature, when the soul is separated from God. On every side avenues open naturally from the safe path, and the wary as well as the unsuspecting are in positive danger, unless they do as did Daniel, make the Lord their strength. The intellect is composed of that upon which it feeds. I would speak to the young men who suppose themselves to be free men, because they are cherishing infidel principles. You are not free. You are bound with bands like steel, and the only one who can free you, is the “Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Jesus has purchased you from the slavery of sin and death, in order that he may make you sons of God. But you must cooperate with God in the work of your salvation, else Christ will have died for you in vain. YI November 23, 1893, par. 6

Satan imparts to those who serve under his banner his own attributes, and causes men to lose control over themselves, so that he may lead them to do the very things they have despised. They will be led to talk loftily, and make a boast of things over which they should be ashamed. Those who are thus led into the delusion of Satan, do not know that they are in bondage. The bands have been broken that bind them to that which is good and pure and holy, and they leave their allegiance to God, and become apostates. They are led of passion and blind self-will, and they permit self-will to gain ascendency over reason and principle. Yet these are the men who call themselves free; but how deluded they are! They imagine that they have a very high standard; but O how shamefully low it is! They say, We want our own ways, not thy ways, O God. They do not realize the truth that Jesus uttered, “Without me ye can do nothing” to reach a high standard. I ask you, young men, Will you keep back from God that which is his own? Will you rob God, and misuse his time, misapply his talents, and refuse to give him the service he requires from each one of you? Will you lay yourselves, the purchased possession of Christ, upon the shrine of the world? Jesus, who has bought you with an infinite price, asks you to give him your heart. Will you give it to him? He asks your time, your money, your body, your soul. He has bought all there is of you; you are his purchased possession. O, do not yield yourselves to the service of Satan, to become a slave to the powers of darkness, and do the bidding of the prince of evil! YI November 23, 1893, par. 7

Mrs. E. G. White