THE EARNEST CHRISTIAN

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 16, 1868

THE EARNEST CHRISTIAN.

SAID a weary pilgrim in Chicago the other day, “I long to be rid of this world, and to depart where I may sing the praises of God forever and ever. Would to God that I were in Heaven!”

Said a brother who had been intently listening to his rapturous description of Heaven—“Better stay here, brother. You are wanted more in Chicago than in Heaven just yet.”

The former seemed the earnest Christian, the latter was one. The first requisite of an earnest man is faith. Men who need five hundred dollars a year, and the American Board to back them, don’t make very earnest missionaries. These are the kind that make out their yearly report of one convert from heathenism, and two deaths, three lapses from the faith and general declension. Think of Paul not starting out until he had drawn on five hundred dollars, to keep body and soul together. Paul had faith—so has the latter. One in God, the other in his salary.

To be really in earnest, a man must believe impossibilities. He must cut loose from his base entirely, and trust God to help him forage on the country. First of all it must be faith, not in himself, not in means, not in man, not in his word even exclusively, but what includes them all, faith in Christ. It must be an unreasoning, not an unreasonable faith.

Christian! you must ask no questions when you see a line of duty. Does God, or conscience, for that is his voice, say, Do this?—Do it, if the heavens fall. “Danger here!” is the Devil’s device to kill faith. No man ever went to ruin loving truth too much.