We are living in a land of bondage and of death. Multitudes are enslaved by sinful customs and evil habits, and their fetters are difficult to break. Iniquity, like a flood, is deluging the earth. Crimes almost too fearful to be even mentioned are of daily occurrence. Shall we say that all this is because men live in obedience to the will of God, or is it because ministers and people hold and teach that its precepts have no binding force?
"God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son" that the lost might be reclaimed. . . . He who has tasted and found that the Lord is good cannot bear the thought of following in the path of transgression. It is pain to him to violate the law of that God who has so loved him. That I May Know Him 294
Whatever your anxieties and trials, spread out your case before the Lord... The weaker and more helpless you know yourself to be, the stronger will you become in His strength. The heavier your burdens, the more blessed the rest in casting them upon the Burden Bearer. The rest that Christ offers depends upon conditions, but these conditions are plainly specified. They are those with which all can comply. He tells us just how His rest is to be found. DA 329.
In the full light of day, and in hearing of the music of other voices, the caged bird will not sing the song that his master seeks to teach him. He learns a snatch of this, a trill of that, but never a separate and entire melody. But the master covers the cage, and places it where the bird will listen to the one song he is to sing. In the dark, he tries and tries again to sing that song until it is learned, and he breaks forth in perfect melody. Then the bird is brought forth, and ever after he can sing that song in the light. Thus God deals with His children. He has a song to teach us, and when we have learned it amid the shadows of affliction we can sing it ever afterward. MH 472
Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart, All you who hope in the LORD. Psalm 31:24 (New King James Version)