J
Jay T
Guest
Duty to Control Imagination.--Few realize that it is a duty to exercise control over the thoughts and imaginations.
It is difficult to keep the undisciplined mind fixed upon profitable subjects. But if the thoughts are not properly employed, religion cannot flourish in the soul.
The mind must be preoccupied with sacred and eternal things, or it will cherish trifling and superficial thoughts. Both the intellectual and the moral powers must be disciplined, and they will strengthen and improve by exercise.--CT 544 (1913). {2MCP 587.3}
.--From what the Lord has shown me, the women of this class [those with an exaggerated concept of their qualities] have had their imaginations perverted by novel reading, daydreaming, and castle-building--living in an imaginary world. They do not bring their own ideas down to the common, useful duties of life.
They do not take up the life burdens which lie in their path and seek to make a happy, cheerful home for their husbands. They rest their whole weight upon them, not bearing their own burden. They expect others to anticipate their wants and do for them, while they are at liberty to find fault and to question as they please.
These women have a love-sick sentimentalism, constantly thinking they are not appreciated, that their husbands do not give them all the attention they deserve. They imagine themselves martyrs.--2T 463 (1870). {2MCP 588.2}
You are extremely sensitive, and if a word is spoken favoring an opposite course from that which you have been pursuing, you are hurt. You feel that you are blamed and that you must defend yourself, save your life; and in your earnest effort to save your life, you lose it.
You have a work to do to die to self and to cultivate a spirit of forbearance and patience. Get over the idea that you are not used right, that you are wronged, that somebody wants to crowd or harm you. You see through false eyes. Satan leads you to take these distorted views of things.--2T 424 (1870). {2MCP 589.1}
Reason Controlled by Imagination.--You are capable of controlling your imagination and overcoming these nervous attacks. You have willpower, and you should bring it to your aid. You have not done this, but have let your highly wrought imagination control reason. In this you have grieved the Spirit of God.
Had you no power over your feelings, this would not be sin; but it will not answer thus to yield to the enemy. Your will needs to be sanctified and subdued instead of being arrayed in opposition to that of God.--5T 310, 311 (1885). {2MCP 589.2}
Diet Affects the Imagination.--Intemperance commences at our tables in the use of unhealthful food.
After a time, through continued indulgence, the digestive organs become weakened, and the food taken does not satisfy the appetite.
Unhealthy conditions are established, and there is a craving for more stimulating food.
Tea, coffee, and flesh meats produce an immediate effect.
Under the influence of these poisons the nervous system is excited, and in some cases, for the time being, the intellect seems to be invigorated and the imagination to be more vivid.--3T 487 (1875). {2MCP 589.3}
Effect of Tea, Coffee, and Other Popular Beverages. --Tea acts as a stimulant and, to a certain extent, produces intoxication.
The action of coffee and many other popular drinks is similar.
The first effect is exhilarating. The nerves of the stomach are excited; these convey irritation to the brain, and this in turn is aroused to impart increased action to the heart and short-lived energy to the entire system. Fatigue is forgotten; the strength seems to be increased. The intellect is aroused, the imagination becomes more vivid.--MH 326 (1905). {2MCP 589.4}
Popular Revivals and Imagination.--Popular revivals are too often carried by appeals to the imagination, by exciting the emotions, by gratifying the love for what is new and startling.
Converts thus gained have little desire to listen to Bible truth, little interest in the testimony of prophets and apostles. Unless a religious service has something of a sensational character, it has no attractions for them.
A message which appeals to unimpassioned reason awakens no response. The plain warnings of God's Word, relating directly to their eternal interests, are unheeded.--GC 463 (1888). {2MCP 590.1}
Theater Depraves the Imagination.--Among the most dangerous resorts for pleasure is the theater.
Instead of being a school of morality and virtue, as is so often claimed, it is the very hotbed of immorality.
Vicious habits and sinful propensities are strengthened and confirmed by these entertainments.
Low songs, lewd gestures, expressions, and attitudes deprave the imagination and debase the morals. Every youth who habitually attends such exhibitions will be corrupted in principle. {2MCP 590.2}
There is no influence in our land more powerful to poison the imagination, to destroy religious impressions, and to blunt the relish for the tranquil pleasures and sober realities of life than theatrical amusements.
The love for these scenes increases with every indulgence, as the desire for intoxicating drink strengthens with its use.
The only safe course is to shun the theater, the circus, and every other questionable place of amusement.-- 4T 652, 653 (1881).
Fiction Creates an Imaginary World.--You have indulged in novel and story reading until you live in an imaginary world.
The influence of such reading is injurious to both the mind and the body; it weakens the intellect and brings a fearful tax upon the physical strength.
At times your mind is scarcely sane because the imagination has been overexcited and diseased by reading fictitious stories. The mind should be so disciplined that all its powers will be symmetrically developed. . . . {2MCP 591.1}
If the imagination is constantly overfed and stimulated by fictitious literature, it soon becomes a tyrant, controlling all the other faculties of the mind and causing the taste to become fitful and the tendencies perverse.-- 4T 497 (1881). {2MCP 591.2}
Seeing Corrupts the Imagination.--This is an age when corruption is teeming everywhere. The lust of the eye and corrupt passions are aroused by beholding and by reading. The heart is corrupted through the imagination.
The mind takes pleasure in contemplating scenes which awaken the lower and baser passions. These vile images, seen through defiled imagination, corrupt the morals and prepare the deluded, infatuated beings to give loose rein to lustful passions.
Then follow sins and crimes which drag beings formed in the image of God down to a level with the beasts, sinking them at last in perdition. {2MCP 591.4}
Avoid reading and seeing things which will suggest impure thoughts. Cultivate the moral and intellectual powers.
Let not these noble powers become enfeebled and perverted by much reading of even storybooks.
I know of strong minds that have been unbalanced and partially benumbed, or paralyzed, by intemperance in reading.--2T 410 (1870). {2MCP 591.5}
It is difficult to keep the undisciplined mind fixed upon profitable subjects. But if the thoughts are not properly employed, religion cannot flourish in the soul.
The mind must be preoccupied with sacred and eternal things, or it will cherish trifling and superficial thoughts. Both the intellectual and the moral powers must be disciplined, and they will strengthen and improve by exercise.--CT 544 (1913). {2MCP 587.3}
.--From what the Lord has shown me, the women of this class [those with an exaggerated concept of their qualities] have had their imaginations perverted by novel reading, daydreaming, and castle-building--living in an imaginary world. They do not bring their own ideas down to the common, useful duties of life.
They do not take up the life burdens which lie in their path and seek to make a happy, cheerful home for their husbands. They rest their whole weight upon them, not bearing their own burden. They expect others to anticipate their wants and do for them, while they are at liberty to find fault and to question as they please.
These women have a love-sick sentimentalism, constantly thinking they are not appreciated, that their husbands do not give them all the attention they deserve. They imagine themselves martyrs.--2T 463 (1870). {2MCP 588.2}
You are extremely sensitive, and if a word is spoken favoring an opposite course from that which you have been pursuing, you are hurt. You feel that you are blamed and that you must defend yourself, save your life; and in your earnest effort to save your life, you lose it.
You have a work to do to die to self and to cultivate a spirit of forbearance and patience. Get over the idea that you are not used right, that you are wronged, that somebody wants to crowd or harm you. You see through false eyes. Satan leads you to take these distorted views of things.--2T 424 (1870). {2MCP 589.1}
Reason Controlled by Imagination.--You are capable of controlling your imagination and overcoming these nervous attacks. You have willpower, and you should bring it to your aid. You have not done this, but have let your highly wrought imagination control reason. In this you have grieved the Spirit of God.
Had you no power over your feelings, this would not be sin; but it will not answer thus to yield to the enemy. Your will needs to be sanctified and subdued instead of being arrayed in opposition to that of God.--5T 310, 311 (1885). {2MCP 589.2}
Diet Affects the Imagination.--Intemperance commences at our tables in the use of unhealthful food.
After a time, through continued indulgence, the digestive organs become weakened, and the food taken does not satisfy the appetite.
Unhealthy conditions are established, and there is a craving for more stimulating food.
Tea, coffee, and flesh meats produce an immediate effect.
Under the influence of these poisons the nervous system is excited, and in some cases, for the time being, the intellect seems to be invigorated and the imagination to be more vivid.--3T 487 (1875). {2MCP 589.3}
Effect of Tea, Coffee, and Other Popular Beverages. --Tea acts as a stimulant and, to a certain extent, produces intoxication.
The action of coffee and many other popular drinks is similar.
The first effect is exhilarating. The nerves of the stomach are excited; these convey irritation to the brain, and this in turn is aroused to impart increased action to the heart and short-lived energy to the entire system. Fatigue is forgotten; the strength seems to be increased. The intellect is aroused, the imagination becomes more vivid.--MH 326 (1905). {2MCP 589.4}
Popular Revivals and Imagination.--Popular revivals are too often carried by appeals to the imagination, by exciting the emotions, by gratifying the love for what is new and startling.
Converts thus gained have little desire to listen to Bible truth, little interest in the testimony of prophets and apostles. Unless a religious service has something of a sensational character, it has no attractions for them.
A message which appeals to unimpassioned reason awakens no response. The plain warnings of God's Word, relating directly to their eternal interests, are unheeded.--GC 463 (1888). {2MCP 590.1}
Theater Depraves the Imagination.--Among the most dangerous resorts for pleasure is the theater.
Instead of being a school of morality and virtue, as is so often claimed, it is the very hotbed of immorality.
Vicious habits and sinful propensities are strengthened and confirmed by these entertainments.
Low songs, lewd gestures, expressions, and attitudes deprave the imagination and debase the morals. Every youth who habitually attends such exhibitions will be corrupted in principle. {2MCP 590.2}
There is no influence in our land more powerful to poison the imagination, to destroy religious impressions, and to blunt the relish for the tranquil pleasures and sober realities of life than theatrical amusements.
The love for these scenes increases with every indulgence, as the desire for intoxicating drink strengthens with its use.
The only safe course is to shun the theater, the circus, and every other questionable place of amusement.-- 4T 652, 653 (1881).
Fiction Creates an Imaginary World.--You have indulged in novel and story reading until you live in an imaginary world.
The influence of such reading is injurious to both the mind and the body; it weakens the intellect and brings a fearful tax upon the physical strength.
At times your mind is scarcely sane because the imagination has been overexcited and diseased by reading fictitious stories. The mind should be so disciplined that all its powers will be symmetrically developed. . . . {2MCP 591.1}
If the imagination is constantly overfed and stimulated by fictitious literature, it soon becomes a tyrant, controlling all the other faculties of the mind and causing the taste to become fitful and the tendencies perverse.-- 4T 497 (1881). {2MCP 591.2}
Seeing Corrupts the Imagination.--This is an age when corruption is teeming everywhere. The lust of the eye and corrupt passions are aroused by beholding and by reading. The heart is corrupted through the imagination.
The mind takes pleasure in contemplating scenes which awaken the lower and baser passions. These vile images, seen through defiled imagination, corrupt the morals and prepare the deluded, infatuated beings to give loose rein to lustful passions.
Then follow sins and crimes which drag beings formed in the image of God down to a level with the beasts, sinking them at last in perdition. {2MCP 591.4}
Avoid reading and seeing things which will suggest impure thoughts. Cultivate the moral and intellectual powers.
Let not these noble powers become enfeebled and perverted by much reading of even storybooks.
I know of strong minds that have been unbalanced and partially benumbed, or paralyzed, by intemperance in reading.--2T 410 (1870). {2MCP 591.5}
