Giving Up | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 29, 1870

Giving Up.

With astonishment we have watched the course of some who once counted themselves, and who perhaps still count themselves, Adventists, as we have seen them surrender point after point of the clearest doctrines of the Advent faith. We note these instances, not with the idea of benefiting the individuals themselves, for we presume they are past help, but as a warning to others to beware how they give themselves up to doubting and darkness. The Pharisees of old, rather than admit the truth, attributed the works of Christ wrought through the Holy Spirit, to the direct agency of the devil, and thus committed the sin against the Holy Ghost. So if now a person in order to avoid the truth, perverts plain declarations of Scripture, and ignores the plainest principles of interpretation, in what condition does he place himself? In darkness and blindness of mind. He offers himself a voluntary victim to strong delusions, and to be led by the devil to whatever conclusions he may will. And what can a blind man see? And how much does a blind man know of the direction in which he is going? Beware, friends, how you yield a point of truth, in order to avoid what may seem to you like a heavy cross, sacrifice, or trial. Once entered upon that course, you know not where you will be led.

A company of Adventists have been willing to follow on in the advancing light of truth, and accept events in their chronological order. They now find themselves standing together, with their feet planted upon the commandments of God, proclaiming the third message, and waiting for the appearance of the Son of Man on the white cloud. Other Adventists, rejecting this later and logical development of the great movement, have thus departed from the light, and fallen more or less into bewilderment and confusion. We should sooner look in any other direction for light than in this. We are prepared for anything, however illogical or unscriptural, from some of them. They give themselves to explaining away direct statements of Scripture, and that, too, on principles which, if correct, unsettle every Bible doctrine that was ever promulgated.

Thus, a writer in the Herald of Life, of March 9, 1870, comes out with an article, undertaking to prove that this earth is not reserved unto fire, that the tares are not to be burned up literally, and that there is to be no manifestation of devouring flame in connection with the second appearing of our Lord; and finally, that there cannot be any general destruction of all living things, as is declared will take place at the end of this world, because God told Noah that he would not again smite every living thing as he had done.

What shall we think of such declarations from such a source? To ask what confidence we could have in them would be too lenient a form of expression. What respect can we have for them? Again we say, Beware of making the first departure from the plain principles of truth, lest like darkness come upon you.

That the writer was laboring under a state of utter blindness is evident from the studiousness with which he avoids those declarations of Scripture which expressly contradict his statements, and the means to which he resorts to explain away those to which he has the courage to allude.

Thus the day of the Lord “that shall burn as an oven,” the fire into which the tares are to be cast, the lake of fire in which there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth, are all, says this writer, “consistent with protracted distresses, vexation, disappointment, despair, and death.” On the same principle of interpretation anything can be proved, or rather nothing; for when we come to the conclusion that the Bible does not mean what it says, it might just as well be laid aside. But such declarations as Isa. 66:15, that the Lord shall come with fire, that he shall render his rebuke with flames of fire, and with fire and his sword plead with all flesh; and 2 Thess. 1:8, that the Lord Jesus shall be revealed in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God; and 2 Pet. 3:7, that the heavens and earth which are now, are reserved unto fire, as the antediluvian world was to water, this to be destroyed as literally by fire as that was by water,—all these he passes by with studious silence.

The Lord save his people from drifting into that deplorable state of darkness and unbelief in which they will endeavor to bend the Scriptures to their own views, and shut their eyes to all which they cannot pervert.