Trimming Empty Lamps by Christian Witness

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 6, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 22.

Trimming Empty Lamps

By Christian Witness

ONE of the many marks of folly shown by the foolish virgins was their attempt to make empty lamps burn by trimming. All the trimming in the world will not make an empty lamp burn. Trimming can never be made to become a successful substitute for oil.

There are many in the church to-day who are making this mistake. They are trimming an empty profession, but it gives no light. Thousands are imitating the foolish virgins in this respect. They are trimming their church-membership with prayers and almsgiving and churchly efforts, but all in vain; there is no divine grace in the heart. A great denomination keeps a week of fasting and prayer, but it amounts to nothing except with those who have oil in their lamps. God said of the Jews who attempted to substitute the keeping of festal days for obedience, that His soul loathed the whole business.—Christian Witness.