Untitled article by Thos. Denmon

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, December 31, 1867

From Bro. Denmon.

By Thos. Denmon

DEAR BRETHREN AND SISTERS: We are living in a grand and awful time! Satan is working with mighty power, and unless we cry mightily to God, we shall be overcome, instead of overcoming. We are receiving greater light now than God's people have been blessed with for eighteen centuries past, and the question for us to settle is, Are we living up to the light that we are receiving? Oh! how thankful we ought to be that there is so much light shed upon our pathway through the gifts that are in the church. Do you say that the way thus marked out is a straight way? Permit me to ask, Did Jesus shun the cross to save a ruined world? and did he not say that we must be baptized with the baptism? Are we seeking the applause and friendship of the world? Are we ashamed to be called the filth and offscouring of the world? Are we willing to live soberly, and not join in the parties of pleasure, in the jesting and joking, and dressing to please the world, and in eating and drinking with them to the same excess of riot? Let us be careful how we grieve the spirit of the Lord; for it is a very tender spirit; and if we love the world more than we do Jesus and his truth, we are unworthy of everlasting life. Unless we keep pace with the message we shall be left behind for the enemy to pick up. Solemn thought to be sifted out after professing the truth so long; better never have known the way, than to turn from the holy commandment delivered to us.

There is no shunning responsibility. We are either for or against. Either advancing or retreating. Let us study well 2 Peter 1, 2-12, remembering that we must take the last step in the Christian graces in order to be prepared for the seal of the living God. Yours striving to overcome. THOS. DENMON. Port Andrew, Wis.