p. 5 | Weakness and Strength by L. A. S.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 23, 1902

Weakness and Strength

By L. A. S.

FAILURE to live the Christian life is prone to seek excuse under the plea of the weakness of the flesh. Those who make this plea have a very mistaken conception of the nature of the plan of salvation. That plan would have been a total failure if it had depended for success upon the ability of even the strongest of human beings to perform the requirements of the law of God.

The law of God does not represent to men the measure of human strength which God requires. It does not measure human strength toward God, but God’s strength toward humanity.

The trouble is not with the individual’s weakness, whoever he may be. What God requires of humanity is submission, and who was ever so weak that he could not submit? All the more easily should an individual yield himself to God when he has so little strength. The trouble is that there is no one so weak that he does not have some strength to resist, and when God would take possession of the heart, he is resisted.

We are told to resist the evil one: “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” James 4:7. All admit that the devil is powerful enough; yet God has made provision so that the weakest individual may become stronger than the devil. The only secret about it is this: “Submit yourselves therefore to God.” Id. It is not you; but God in you, who is to resist the devil, and cause him to flee.

No one can ever excuse himself from Christian duty on the plea of weakness. There can be no reason why any one should fail to live upon the high plane of Christian duty and privilege, and no cause for such failure save his own unwillingness to submit himself unto God. To submit to God, or to resist him—to accept his salvation, or to refuse it—these are the questions to be settled by each individual, through the exercise of his own will. “Whosoever will,” may take the water of life freely.

L. A. S.