The Double Life by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 19, 1914

The Double Life

By F. M. W.

It is a terrible thing to live a double life. To profess one thing before our fellows, to live among our acquaintances as one actuated by pure purposes, while at the same time the heart is controlled by the basest motives, and the individual guilty of secret sins which would ostracize him in the eyes of Christian men and women,—this sham of a life, this hypocritical pretense, is a travesty on religion and a dishonor to God and to his cause. There are many in the world today who are living just such lives as this.

It is only as those individuals awaken to a sense of their true condition that they can recover themselves from the snare into which they have fallen. But God's power is able to snatch even these as brands from the burning. His love reaches out to save the vilest sinner. There is no depth of sin to which his mercy and compassion will not penetrate.

Some, in the awakened consciousness of sin, fear to return to God, believing that they have passed the boundaries of his mercy. This is Satan's further effort to fasten them forever in his toils. In the sense of awakened guilt and consciousness of wrongdoing, God is bidding the soul to return to him. Says the Saviour: "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him." No heart senses its sinfulness except as the Spirit of God creates this consciousness, and the very fact that God sends his Spirit to convict of sin is of itself an evidence that he is reach-ing out after the sinner's restoration.

God does not create in the human soul impulses for a better life in order that he may mock the sinner as he turns for a way of escape. He does not inspire the asking of bread in order that he may give a stone. To "every one that thirsteth" he extends the invitation, "Come ye to the waters;" and to him who stands penniless and without worth or merit of his own, to him "that hath no money," he says, "Come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." Isa. 55:1. And the Saviour promises, "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." John 6:37.

Poor sinner, this word is for you. You may have wandered far from the Father's house; you may have spent the portion bestowed upon you in riotous living; your association even may have been with the swine of the field, but the Father's heart yearns for you still. "Come, come," is the word he gives you. "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden." "Come thou with us, and we will do thee good." "The Spirit and the bride say, Come. . . . And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Rev. 22:17.

If you will come to him with all your heart, if you will throw yourself at the feet of Jesus just as you are, defiled, helpless, unclean, he will take you and cleanse you from sin by his own divine power. He will put within your heart his own life, and he will give you strength to stand, for "he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him." Heb. 7:25. He "is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy." Jude 24. He "is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." Eph. 3:20. But there must be on our part a willing mind, a renunciation of sin. Our will must be placed on the side of God's will. We must yield ourselves to him, and let him come in and take possession of our lives. Let us take with us words, and turn again to the Lord.