p. 13 | Our Responsibility by C. L. Benson

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 11, 1913

Our Responsibility

By C. L. Benson

NINETEEN hundred years ago Jesus said, “Many shall come from the east and west, and sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Truly these prophetic words, spoken so long ago, are meeting their fulfilment today. Men and women in Japan, China, India, Africa, America, and Europe are accepting Jesus Christ and the third angel’s message, and their lives are being transformed. They are getting ready for translation. But what about the “children of the kingdom,” our Seventh-day Adventist young men and women, your boys and girls? Are they being transformed and renewed, preparatory to Christ’s coming?—Many are; but thousands of our young people are drifting, going into the world, and caring naught for things eternal.

Surely a great responsibility rests upon the parents of Seventh-day Adventist children. Satan is working hard to capture our boys and girls. But Christ says he can save to the uttermost. Now, dear fathers and mothers in Israel, will you not cooperate in every way possible with the Missionary Volunteer Department in its effort to save your boys and girls?

One of the best methods devised by our department to do this is through the observance of the morning watch, spending a few minutes at the beginning of the day alone with Christ, studying his Word and talking to him. This was the secret of Christ’s power and victorious life as he walked with God among men at the beginning of the Christian era. Will you not observe the morning watch yourself, then encourage your boys and girls to do the same? Present to them a Morning Watch Calendar. Read the text for the next day at evening worship; at morning worship read it again. Get the children to quote it; talk about it at meal-time; ask the children what the text means, then explain what you think it means.

Surely such a course will help the children not to live by bread alone. It will fortify them against the attacks of Satan, and will be a fulfilment of the Lord’s charge to the children of Israel: “Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign about your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”

C. L. BENSON.