What Kind of a People are They?
By G. W. A.
In Rev. xiv, 1, John saw a certain people, 144,000 in number, standing on the sea of glass, having the harps of God in their hands. As this company seem to be especially favored of the Lord, in being exalted to such a heavenly position, we inquire, What kind of a people were they, on earth, before obtaining such heavenly preferment? We answer, In this world they were known as Seventh-day Adventists, or in the scoffer's tongue, as Jews, fanatics, crazy-heads, vision-lovers, &c., &c. In reality they were the “remnant” people of God; they kept the commandments of God without any flinching; they observed with religious reverence the Sabbath as given to Adam in Eden—the seventh day; they believed in the blessed hope of Jesus' soon coming; they held to the perpetuity of the gifts in the gospel church down to the very end of time,—and, the spirit of prophecy was with them; they believed that man by nature was mortal, and that it was simply a lie of the Devil, that there was something in his nature as imperishable as that of God's; they believed, as all the prophets, and patriarchs, and apostles, with Christ their elder brother at their head, as they all taught, that all the wicked would certainly be destroyed; they had a great longing for the “old paths,” and so they held, as set forth in the beginning, that man should live of the fruits and products of the ground, consequently they discarded flesh-eating, and sought by abstinence and temperance to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit; they were poor, they were persecuted, they were despised; the world did not think them fit to live, but God loved them, delivered them,—and they were saved. Reader, do you want to be of that number?