Peril
of Sinning Against Light
"God always has men to whom He
entrusts His message. His Spirit moves upon their hearts, and constrains them
to speak. Stimulated by holy zeal, and with the divine impulse strong upon
them, they enter upon the performance of their duty without coldly calculating
the consequences of speaking to the people the word which the Lord has given
them. But the servant of God is soon made aware that he has risked something. He finds himself and his message made
the subject of criticism. His manners, his life, his property are all inspected
and commented upon. His message is picked to pieces and rejected in the most
illiberal and unsanctified spirit, as men in their finite judgment see fit. Has
that message done the work God designed it should accomplish? No; it has
signally failed, because the hearts of the hearers were unsanctified." {2BC 1034.2}
Peril of Sinning Against
Light
Review and Herald Articles
June 29, 1897
By Mrs. Ellen G. White
"The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us
from all sin." No matter how sinful a person has been, no matter what his
position may be, if he will repent and believe, coming unto Christ, and
trusting him as his personal Saviour, he may be saved unto the uttermost. But
how dangerous is the position of him who knows truth, but delays to practise it. How perilous it is for men to seek to amuse
the mind, to gratify the taste and satisfy the reason, by neglecting what has
been revealed as duty, and rambling off in search of something they do not
know. God has opened a garden of precious plants and flowers, where men may
enjoy the fragrance and pluck the fruit; but that which may be known becomes
tame after a time, does not delight their senses, and they want something not
in the garden, as did Adam and Eve in Eden,--something which God has seen fit
to withhold. They are not benefited by the rich banquet which he has set before
them, but desire to taste that which he has not provided, to gain access to
gardens not opened to their feet. But what blessings are lost by not making a
proper use of the privileges freely given us of God! Through ingratitude and
unholy desire, men want something which they do not have. {RH, June 29,
1897 par. 1}
Jesus says, "Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you."
Gather up every ray, pass not one by. Walk in the light. Practise every precept of truth presented to you. Live by
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,
and you will then follow Jesus wherever he goeth. When the Lord presents
evidence upon evidence and gives light upon light, why is it that souls
hesitate to walk in the light? Why do men neglect to walk in light to a greater
light? The Lord does not refuse to give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him.
When conviction comes home to the conscience, why not listen, and heed the
voice of the Spirit of God? By every hesitation and delay, we place ourselves
where it is more and more difficult for us to accept the light of heaven, and
at last it seems impossible to be impressed by admonitions and warnings. The sinner
says, more and more easily, "Go thy way for this time; when I have a more
convenient season, I will call for thee." {RH, June 29, 1897 par. 2}
I know the danger of those who refuse to walk in the light as God gives it. They bring
upon themselves the terrible crisis of being left to follow their own ways, to
do after their own judgment. The conscience becomes less and less impressible.
The voice of God seems to become more and more distant, and the wrong-doer is
left to his own infatuation. In stubbornness he resists every appeal, despises
all counsel and advice, and turns from every provision made for his salvation,
and the voice of the messenger of God makes no impression upon his mind. The
Spirit of God no longer exerts a restraining power over him, and the sentence
is passed, "He is joined to idols,
let him alone." O how dark, how sullen, how obstinate, is his
independence! It seems that the insensibility of death is upon his heart. This is the process through which the soul passes
that rejects the working of the Holy Spirit. {RH, June 29, 1897
par. 3}
He that walketh in darkness knoweth not at what he stumbleth. The soul that at first delays and hesitates,
resisting light and pressing against all knowledge, has excellent intentions of
making a square turn about when a convenient season shall come; but the wily
foe that is upon his track makes his plans to bind him by the imperceptible
threads of evil habits. Character is formed by habits, and one step in the
downward road is a preparation for the second step, and the second for those
that shall follow. Habits are formed by repetition of acts, and it takes time
for a person who has been religiously instructed to throw off all restraint,
and become accustomed to, and at home in, an evil course, and happy in doing
the drudgery of Satan. {RH, June 29, 1897 par. 4}
The children of God are to shine as lights in the midst of a perverse and
crooked generation. But if right habits are not cultivated, they will give way
to natural tendencies, and will become self-sufficient, self-indulgent,
reckless, covetous, revengeful, independent, self-willed, heady, high-minded,
lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. As one who loves your soul, I
would warn you not to delay, waiting for a time when you will be more inclined
to serve God than at the present time. Every hour that you delay, you bind yourself away from God, erect barriers against him in
your habits and practises, and make more difficult
your repentance and return to the paths of righteousness. May God help the
backslider and the sinner no longer to remain in the entanglement which the
evil one is strengthening around them. Wait not to
reason, wait not to measure possibilities and probabilities. Break with the
deceiver at once. Insult no
longer the Spirit of God. Press your way to the throne of grace through the
opposing powers of hell. You are standing on the brink of the eternal world.
Make a rush for the kingdom of God. It will require every
energy of mind and purpose of soul. Delay not, saying, "I am not
religiously inclined." This very fact should make you fear lest the Spirit
of God is being grieved away for the last time. Dare you run the risk?
{RH, June 29, 1897 par. 5}
"How
long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the
scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at
my reproof: behold, I will pour out my Spirit unto you, I will make known my
words unto you. Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my
hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would
none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;
when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a
whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon
me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find
me: for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the
Lord." {RH, June 29, 1897 par. 6}
The person
who is drawn again and again by his Redeemer, and who slights the warnings
given, yields not to his convictions to repent, and heeds not when he is
exhorted to seek pardon and grace, is in a perilous position. Jesus is
drawing him, the Spirit is exerting his power upon him, urging him to surrender
his will to the will of God; and when this
invitation is unheeded, the Spirit is grieved away. The sinner
chooses to remain in sin and impenitence, although he has evidence to encourage
his faith, and more evidence would do
no good. His sins of past and present are presented before him, yet the drawing
is in vain; for he refuses to change his course of action. There is another
drawing to which he is responding, and that is the drawing of Satan. He yields
obedience to the powers of darkness. This course is fatal, and leaves the soul
in obstinate impenitence. This is the blasphemy that is most general among men,
and it works in a most subtle way, until the sinner feels no remorse of
conscience, no repentance, and consequently has no pardon. The man is left to
himself, loving darkness rather than light. This is the case of thousands
today. {RH, June 29, 1897 par. 7}
But I will address these lines to those who have had light, those who have had
privileges, those who have had warnings and entreaties, who
have made no determined effort to yield themselves in full surrender to God. I would warn
you to fear lest you sin against the Holy Ghost, and be left to your own
course, sunk in moral lethargy, and never obtain forgiveness. Why allow
yourselves to be longer educated in the school of Satan, and pursue a course of
action that will make repentance and reformation impossible? Why resist the
overtures of mercy? Why say, "Let me alone," until God shall be
compelled to give you your desire, since you will have it so? Those who
resist the Spirit of God think that they will repent at some future day, when
they get ready to take a decided step toward reformation; but repentance will
then be beyond their power. According to
the light and privileges given will be the darkness of those who refuse to walk
in the light while they have the light. {RH, June 29, 1897
par. 8}
No one need look upon the sin against the Holy Ghost as something mysterious
and indefinable. The sin against the Holy
Ghost is the sin of persistent refusal to respond to the invitation to repent. If you
refuse to believe in Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour, you love darkness
rather than light, you love the atmosphere that surrounded the first great
apostate. You choose this atmosphere rather than the atmosphere that surrounds
the Father and the Son, and God allows you to have your choice. But let no soul
be discouraged by this presentation of the matter. Let no one who is striving
to do the will of the Master be cast down. Hope thou in God. The Lord Jesus has
made it manifest that he regards you at an infinite estimation. He left his
royal throne, he left his royal courts, he clothed his
divinity with humanity, and died a shameful death upon the cross of Calvary,
that you might be saved. All the suffering and humiliation of the Son of God
was endured that we might understand how God loved the world, how he purposed
to bring moral power within our reach that we might be ennobled, elevated, and
become partakers of the divine nature. By his grace, Christ enlarges and
multiplies the faculties of men as they co-operate with heavenly intelligences,
and transformation of character is the result. Through faith in Christ his
powers of mind and heart are enlarged, and the believer is endowed with refined
and holy affections. {RH, June 29, 1897 par. 9}
The character of Daniel is an illustration of what a man may become through the
grace of Christ. He was strong in intellectual and spiritual power. The Holy
Spirit is the source of all power, and works as a living, active agent in the
new life created in the soul. The Holy Spirit is to be in us a divine
indweller. Then let gratitude and love abound in your heart to God. "Study to show thyself approved unto God." Let
your conduct, your character, be in accordance with
the sacred trust and heavenly endowment of the Holy Spirit. Never,
never, feel at liberty to trifle with the opportunities granted to you. Study
the will of God; do not study how you can avoid keeping the commandments of
God, but study rather how you may keep them in sincerity and truth, and truly
serve him whose property you are. Do not be satisfied with meeting a low
standard, but consult the Spirit of God, obey its dictates, serve God in the
beauty of holiness, and render glory to his name. {RH, June 29, 1897 par.
10}