True Sanctification, April 20
I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. Acts 20:32.
What is genuine sanctification? Read Exodus 31. In that chapter we shall understand the term, for God Himself has defined it. The Lord Jesus had given the special directions how to build the tabernacle. As the children of Israel had been compelled to work on the Sabbath, the sacredness of the day was not preserved. As slaves in Egypt, they had largely lost the knowledge of the Sabbath. This is the reason the commandments of God were given in awful grandeur upon Mount Sinai. The Lord would guard His Sabbath in particular, and He knew the people would forget the commandment of the Sabbath, and in their zeal the workmen would say, “This work is the Lord's, and under His supervision, and we can do His work without observing the Sabbath....” Therefore the seventh day was distinguished as God's memorial and was to be kept holy unto the Lord that the people “may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify” them. This is genuine sanctification....
But the work must needs go deeper, take firmer hold of the life and of the character. Some have thought they could easily persuade a sinner to give up his idols, to keep God's commandments, to believe Jesus is soon to come in the clouds of heaven. When they can awaken no interest, no desire to search the Scriptures to see if these things are indeed truth; when they see no conviction assured in the minds of those who transgress the law of God; when they are frequently met with flimsy excuses, with indifference or decided opposition and ridicule; when their hearers turn aside to heap contempt upon God's holy law, they become discouraged. Where they looked for success, they found defeat....
Oh, how many lessons those young in the faith will have to learn in the exercise of winning souls to Christ! Some will learn in defeat and failure the lessons they would not otherwise have learned, but a few repulses have so chilling an influence that the spark of grace almost becomes extinct in their own souls and they think it does not pay to make efforts to save souls, and they no longer shine as lights in the world. The thought of turning souls from the errors of their ways, the sense of obligation to impart to others the precious light of truth, dies, and they do nothing....
These difficulties, opposition, disappointments and discouragements they must meet again in a more decided, intense manner, but they must be firm as a rock to principle. If we are Christians, we must be Christlike, we must reflect light.—Letter 19c, April 20, 1874, to W. C. White.
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