Is IT I? by C. M. Willis

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 6, 1866

Is IT I?

By C. M. Willis

Stray Thoughts. No. 4.

Is IT I?

It was night. The sun had withdrawn from the scene; and darkness had drawn her dark mantle over the earth. The planets rolled on in their harmonious circles, regardless of the fearful tragedy about to be enacted in their midst. In a large upper room, reclining around a table spread with the symbols of Jewish deliverance, were thirteen persons. The dignified majesty of one, mingled with an air of resigned suffering, mark him as the central object of the surrounding group, while the looks of love and adoration with which he is regarded by them, show that they believe him to be the promised Messiah, the Son of God. He speaks, and lo, the most eager interest is visible on every countenance, "Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me." What a thought! Consternation seizes their minds at once! What! betray that being whom they had so learned to adore? whom they had never seen bestow aught but kindness to the most abject wretch who claimed his pity? who had done such wonderful works in their presence? who had bestowed such wonderful power on them? who had calmed the angry waves for their safety? given them bread when hungry? healed them when sick? and kindly administered to every want? How could this be? Distrusting even themselves, they began sorrowfully to ask, "Is it I?" and another, "Is it I?"

Treacherous Judas! With those piercing eyes fixed upon him, cowering beneath a knowledge of what he had done, while the thoughts of those rankling pieces of silver kept tugging, pulling, tearing at his heart-strings; no wonder, when he received the proof that his guilt was known, that he went immediately out, horror-stricken, but alas, not repentant. A little later, and the Judas kiss is given, he has been denied and forsaken by his devoted followers, delivered into the hands of sinners, and led as a lamb to the slaughter.

But is Judas the only one who has betrayed his Lord? Is there but one Peter who has denied his Master? Backsliding, lukewarm professor, which are you—you who are striving to gain the world, while you profess to honor God? If you still desire to have a place with his people, and yet are half dead, reaching out after the world with one hand, while the other is lifted toward Heaven, you do not perhaps virtually deny your Lord, you do worse—you bring a reproach upon his cause, a dishonor to his name; crucifying the Lord afresh, and putting him to an open shame. You cannot be called a Peter, you are a Judas. You are ready on the one hand to say, "Hail, Master," and on the other, "This is he, take him, and lead him away." Are there not times when these things are laid before your eyes in their true light, forced home to your hearts and consciences, by the searching influence of the Holy Spirit? times when you start with astonishment, as you see the hold the world is gaining on your affections, and how your heart runs out after its fashions, its riches, its honors and applause, and you becoming engrafted, as it were, into its very habits and principles? When these things are made manifest, though they may be accomplished by repentings and bitter regrets, shrink not from them, nor defer the examination until another time. If you but heed them in season, and hinder not their perfect work, in the end it will prove a most precious pruning. Your works, sooner or later must come to the light, and be made manifest. Why not bring them there yourself, and let them be reproved and purged away even by chastisement, before the great Judge shall sit as a refiner’s fire, and you and they become as the chaff of the summer threshing-floor? As fast as your Christian graces die out and disappear, so fast do obnoxious weeds spring up and fill their place. Look closely. Instead of that Christian charity that was willing to show that forbearance to any erring one, which you asked for yourselves, and which covered a multitude of faults; is there not an envious, fault-finding principle within, a disposition to magnify any falling on the part of others which you may fancy exists? Instead of coming out from the world, and caring for none of its useless fashions, are you not adding one useless article of dress to another, in order to appear like others? Instead of feeling yourselves only as stewards in the Lord’s household, to occupy till he comes; do you not begin to say by your actions, "My Lord delayeth his coming," and begin to eat and to drink, and to add acre to acre, dollar to dollar, and to heap up the corruptible treasures of earth?

Is there any growth in grace in this? Does it have that satisfying influence on the mind, which a closer walk with God did? Far from it.

I do not ask these questions of your neighbors, or that brother or sister who you fancy has injured you, or who, you judge, is going astray. I ask them individually of you. Examine well your own heart, and if you find it conforming to the above description, then you are going wrong. Do not trust for safety in this leader or that messenger, or in your godly neighbor. If you do not trust your safety on a mightier arm than one of flesh, you are binding up your hopes with a rope of sand. Earthly helps are not to be despised, but they cannot save. Neither is Satan voluntarily going to withdraw his forces from the field, and let his captives go free. There never will be a time when you can any more easily break loose from his tightening fetters than now. Every hour of delay but rivets his bonds more firmly. Work out then, your own salvation with as much earnestness, as though you were the only sinner that needed salvation, if you expect to stand in the day of wrath. There are many Peters in the camp who are ready in time of trial or persecution, to deny their Lord; and—may Heaven help us—we have many Judases, who would sell him for a few pieces of silver. Oh, that each with trembling, may ask, "Is it I?"