Contact With False Teachings

As young people go out into the world to encounter its allurements to sin—the passion for money getting, for amusement and indulgence, for display, luxury, and extravagance, the overreaching, fraud, robbery, and ruin—what are the teachings to be met there?TEd 138.1

Spiritualism asserts that human beings are unfallen demigods, that “each mind will judge itself,” “all sins committed are innocent,” for “whatever is, is right,” and “God does not condemn.” The basest of human beings are represented as in heaven, and highly exalted there. Thus it teaches that “It matters not what you do; live as you please, heaven is your home.” Multitudes are thus led to believe that desire is the highest law, that license is liberty, and that the members of the human race are accountable only to themselves.TEd 138.2

With such teaching given at the very outset of life, when impulse is strongest and the demand for self-restraint and purity is most urgent, where are the safeguards of virtue? What is to prevent the world from becoming a second Sodom?TEd 138.3

At the same time rebellious spirits are seeking to sweep away all law, both divine and human. The centralizing of wealth and power; the vast combinations for enriching the few at the expense of the many; the combinations of the poorer classes for the defense of their interests and claims; the spirit of unrest, of riot and bloodshed—all are tending to involve the whole world in a struggle similar to that which convulsed France in the eighteenth century.TEd 138.4

Such are the influences to be met by young people today. To stand amidst such upheavals they must now lay the foundations of character.TEd 138.5

In every generation and in every land the true foundation and pattern for character building have been the same. The divine law, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart; ... and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27)—the great principle made manifest in the character and life of our Savior—is the only secure foundation, the only sure guide.TEd 138.6

“Wisdom and knowledge will be the stability of your times” (Isaiah 33:6, Leeser’s translation)—that wisdom and knowledge which God’s Word alone can impart.TEd 138.7

Here is the only safeguard for individual integrity, for the purity of the home, the well-being of society, or the stability of the nation. Amidst all life’s perplexities, dangers, and conflicting claims, the one safe and sure rule is to do what God says. “The precepts of the Lord are right,” and “those who do these things shall never be moved.” Psalm 19:8; 15:5, NRSV.TEd 139.1