A Firm Platform by L. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jan 4, 1906

A Firm Platform

By L. A. S.

THOSE who have accepted the reform message now going to the world to prepare a people for Christ’s return, have reason to thank God that they stand upon a firm platform. This platform is,

the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

All around them in the religious world they see confusion and uncertainty. They see multitudes of people “tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness.” Insidious errors taint the religious atmosphere, undermining and destroying the foundations of faith. The Word of God is robbed of its authority; the forms and phrases of Christianity are used to clothe a system devoid of faith and piety. The most fundamental truths of the Christian religion are being lost to view in the fog of error.

The true followers of Christ are now commissioned to go everywhere, giving the trumpet a certain sound. They go bearing a definite message. They raise aloft a banner bearing an inscription whose force and significance are plain to all,—“the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” Under that banner people know where they stand, and what they believe. They understand the history of the past, and know what is to come in the future. Most important of all, they know what is present duty.

The commandments of God—what a straight, solid highway is this for the feet of those seeking the better world to come! There can be no sin, no error, in that pathway. Keeping the commandments of God must bring the approval of God, and must put the soul in touch with the power and the wisdom of God. “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” “The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.” Nothing can overthrow the law of God, so long as God himself remains supreme. Nothing can prevail against that law, or against the keepers of it. So long as one keeps in that pathway, he can not be led into worldliness, nor drawn into any of the delusions that so abound in the present age. Study of the law of God and meditation upon its precepts are most highly conducive to soundness of the mental and moral faculties.

But the law of God is not all of Christianity; there remains “the faith of Jesus.” The commandments of God mean perfection of character, and the faith of Jesus is the avenue through which perfection is reached. “The commandments of God” upon our banner means that we combat all that teaching which would sweep away in men’s minds the foundation of God’s government and the groundwork of their allegiance to him; and “the faith of Jesus” means that with our uplifting of the law we uplift Christ as the one and only means of our keeping it, the sinner’s only hope for future life, and proclaim the doctrine of salvation by faith in him. It means also that we proclaim not mere “faith,” as the term is now often used to designate confidence in something that rests on human reasoning or speculation, but “the faith of Jesus”—that which carried Jesus through the darkness and trials of his earthly life, and gave him victory over the world and the powers of evil. Let us raise aloft this banner. Let us be glad for a definite message, a firm platform, a light that illumines past, present, and future, and a clear trumpet call to Christian duty.

L. A. S.