They Kill Vital Connections with God, August 15

She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth. 1 Timothy 5:6.RRe 229.1

Those who love pleasure may keep up a form of godliness, but they have no vital connections with God. Their faith is dead, their zeal has departed.—Messages to Young People, 142.RRe 229.2

Though church-members, they are unconverted. They may take part in the church service, they may chant the psalm, “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God;” but they testify to a falsehood. They are no more righteous in God’s sight than is the veriest sinner. The soul that longs after the excitement of worldly pleasure, the mind that is full of love for display, cannot serve God.... Such a one has no inclination to war against the lust of the flesh. He belongs to indulge appetite. He chooses the atmosphere of sin.—Christ’s Object Lessons, 270.RRe 229.3

Professed Christians, worldly Christians, are unacquainted with heavenly things. They will never be brought to the gates of the New Jerusalem to engage in exercises which have not hitherto specially interested them. They have not trained their minds to delight in devotion, and in meditation upon things of God and Heaven. How, then, can they engage in the services of Heaven? how delight in the spiritual, the pure, the holy in Heaven, when it was not a special delight to them upon earth?—Testimonies for the Church 2:265.RRe 229.4