Devotional Life of the Remnant
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saved. The heart must be purified from all moral defilement.—
Our
High Calling, 142
(1893).
Few realize that it is a duty to exercise control over their thoughts
and imaginations. It is difficult to keep the undisciplined mind fixed
upon profitable subjects. But if the thoughts are not properly employed,
religion cannot flourish in the soul. The mind must be preoccupied
with sacred and eternal things, or it will cherish trifling and superficial
thoughts. Both the intellectual and the moral powers must be disci-
plined, and they will strengthen and improve by exercise.—
Our High
Calling, 111
(1881).
We greatly need to encourage and cultivate pure, chaste thoughts,
and to strengthen the moral powers rather than the lower and carnal
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powers. God help us to awake from our self-indulgent appetites!—
Medical Ministry, 278
(1896).
The Example of Enoch
Enoch walked with God three hundred years previous to his trans-
lation to heaven, and the state of the world was not then more favorable
for the perfection of Christian character than it is today. And how did
Enoch walk with God? He educated his mind and heart to ever feel
that he was in the presence of God, and when in perplexity his prayers
would ascend to God to keep him.
He refused to take any course that would offend his God. He kept
the Lord continually before him. He would pray, “Teach me Thy way,
that I may not err. What is Thy pleasure concerning me? What shall
I do to honor Thee, my God?” Thus he was constantly shaping his
way and course in accordance with God’s commandments, and he had
perfect confidence and trust in his heavenly Father, that He would help
him. He had no thought or will of his own. It was all submerged in the
will of his Father.
Now Enoch was a representative of those who will be upon the
earth when Christ shall come, who will be translated to heaven without
seeing death.—
Sermons and Talks 1, 32
(1886).
Enoch had temptations as well as we. He was surrounded with
society no more friendly to righteousness than is that which surrounds
us. The atmosphere he breathed was tainted with sin and corruption
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the same as ours, yet he lived a life of holiness. He was unsullied with