Testimony for the Church
143
Cleanse the fountain and the streams will be pure. The house of God is often desecrated by Sabbath-keepers’ children. Their parents allow them to run about the house, play, talk, take the attention of the people, and manifest their evil tempers in the very meetings where they have assembled to worship God. I have seen that in the assembly of the saints a holy [289]
stillness should reign. But the house where God’s people assemble is often made a perfect babylon, a place of confusion and disorder. This is displeasing to God. If the parents have not government, and cannot control their children in meeting, God would be better pleased for them to remain at home with their unruly children. They had better suffer the loss of meetings, than to have a large number annoyed, and their meetings spoiled. If parents leave their children uncontrolled, unsubdued at home, they cannot have them do as they wish in meeting. Who should be the sufferers in this case? Certainly, the parents. They should not feel afflicted if others do not wish to have their peace disturbed when they meet to worship God. Parents, you must be the sufferers in this matter, and it may lead you to see and fulfill your neglected duty. If you carry your children to the house of God, they should be made to understand that they are where God meets with his people. There is not that order observed among Sabbath-keepers in this respect that there is in the nominal churches. Parents, you have a work to do. Subdue your children at home, and then you can govern them in the house of God. The Lord has shown me that his grace is sufficient for all our trials; and although they are greater than ever before, yet if we trust [290]
wholly in God, we can overcome every temptation, and through his grace come off victorious. If we overcome our trials, and obtain victory over the temptations of Satan, then we endure the trial of our faith, which is much more precious than gold, and are stronger, and better prepared to meet the next. But if we sink down, and give way to the temptations of Satan, we get no reward for the trial, and shall not be so well prepared for the next. In this way we shall grow weaker, and weaker, until we are led captive by Satan at his will. When temptations and trials rush in upon us, let us go to God, and agonize with him in prayer. He will give us grace and strength to overcome, and break the power of the enemy. God has shown me that he gives his people a bitter cup to drink to purify and cleanse them. They can make it still more bitter by murmuring, complaining, and repining. But those who receive it thus, must have another draught, for the first does not have its designed effect upon the heart. And if the second does not effect the work, then they must have another, and another, until it does have its designed effect, or they will be left impure in heart. I saw that this bitter cup can be sweetened by patience, endurance and prayer, and that it will have its designed effect upon the hearts of those who thus received it, and God will be honored and glorified. [291]