p. 6 | Personal Experience in Accepting Present Truth

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 1, 1910

Personal Experience in Accepting Present Truth

By DANIEL NETTLETON

DANIEL NETTLETON

“Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee,” says Moses; and Paul exhorts us to “call to remembrance the former days.” The Lord said he had somewhat against the church of Ephesus, because they had left their first love. A good way to keep from losing our first love for this message and work is frequently to review the steps we took in coming into the truth, and then to “remember all the way” in which the Lord has led us.

I accepted present truth in 1875, entered the ministry in 1877, and have been in the work ever since. God called me to do the work of an evangelist,—to preach the word,—and I have endeavored to be about my “Father’s business.” “As we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak.”

The Sabbath truth came to me while I was yet at home, working on father’s farm in Nebraska. A Seventh-day Adventist home missionary worker sent father the ADVENT REVIEW AND SABBATH HERALD. Being strict Methodists, and being warned not to read those “advent papers,” mother pasted them on the wall to keep out the wind and cold. Well, they did help keep the cold out, and they brought the truth in, though we did not invite it to come. Though they came uninvited, the papers were a great blessing. “Some have entertained angels unawares.” Pasted in a conspicuous place near the wood-box was one of those papers, with the title-page plainly to be seen. When I brought in the wood, I would stop and read: “ADVENT REVIEW AND SABBATH HERALD.” “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”

When I went out to work, I would say to myself: “Do not we Methodists keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus?” I had learned the ten commandments at Sunday-school, and I knew the fourth one said, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. . . . The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” I knew the calendar put Sunday as the first day of the week, and Mark said, “When the Sabbath was past, . . . very early in the morning the first day of the week,” and Matthew said, “In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week.” Our Methodist minister said, “We keep the first day of the week to commemorate the resurrection of our Saviour,” but I had not read that in the Bible. I did read, however, “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law;” and I knew the law to say, “The seventh day is the Sabbath.” In the epistle of James I read: “And whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all;” and in I John 3 : 4, “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.”

I was made a little uneasy by these scriptures, so I began to study and think about this matter. Some said we could not tell which day is the Sabbath. But I read in my Bible (Luke 23 : 54-56) that the day on which Jesus was crucified “was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew on. . . . And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment.” Then “upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher.” So I knew that the day just before the first day of the week was the Sabbath day, according to the commandment.

Another incident also helped to make this truth plain. One morning after family worship (my father always had family prayer, morning and evening, and it was this that led me to give my heart to God) my brother said to me, “You are not keeping the true Sabbath day. The seventh day is the Sabbath, and our family Bible says Saturday is the seventh day, or Sabbath.” I went to the family Bible, and found the time-table to which he referred, and sure enough, it said, “The first day of the week, Sunday; the second day, Monday; . . . the seventh day, or Sabbath, Saturday.” It was made so plain that Saturday is the true Sabbath day that I could not deny it and be a Christian. God fixed that truth so firmly in my mind that it has not yet been removed. Divine truth took hold of me, and claimed me as its own. I praise the Lord that I am still his, and by his grace have been able to call hundreds to the same truth, who have been led to keep “the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”

I am so glad now that my father was poor, and we did not live in a fine, comfortable house; for if we had, those “advent papers” might never have been pasted on the wall, and I might never have read them, and been led to the present truth. I am also thankful that God put it into some one’s heart to send us the REVIEW. God knows who it was, and I expect to know in the new earth. O brethren! let us continue to send our good papers to our friends. “Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters.” “In due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” As I continued to read the REVIEW and study my Bible, there came into my heart a strong desire to be a Sabbath-keeper. I would go out into the grove on father’s old homestead, and pray that God would open the way so I could be baptized and keep his Sabbath. In my next article I will tell how God answered my prayer.

Port Townsend, Wash.