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THE PRESENT

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 13, 1879

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 53, No. 11.

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THE PRESENT.

By Milton C. Wilcox

The present is often spoken of as the “watching and waiting time.” It is also the working time. Satan is trying to lull us to sleep. We are on the “enchanted ground,” breathing its potent, deadly atmosphere. The sensation is pleasant; we do not like to be disturbed. Like the sluggard, we murmur, “Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep;” and the time passes, the morning dawns, the Sun of Righteousness rises in all his glory, and we awake to find ourselves shut out. “So shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth; and thy want as an armed man.” Prov. 24 : 33, 34.
It matters not what great professions we may make, nor how much we may desire to do, if we make no effort ourselves. “The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing.” (See also Matt. 21 : 28–31.)
The curses, not the promises, belong to the idler. “Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty.” Judges 5 : 23. The divine injunction is, “Go labor in my vineyard.” And the plaudit that will greet the faithful laborer at the end will be, “Well done.”
God accepts no half-hearted service. What we can do just as well as not does not show any love or devotion to Him who hath loved us, and given himself for us. Yet we drift along day by day as though we believed that all God requires of us is to work for him in our “spare time,” when it does not interfere with other affairs. It was a sacrifice for our Lord to leave Heaven—to suffer and die, and those that are gathered when he comes will be those who have made a covenant with him by sacrifice. Ps. 50 : 5. God has given us talents and means to use in his service, and he will require his own with usury. May we awake to our true condition, put on more of the spirit of Christ, and render to him the service due. Brethren, let us be found doing his work.
MILTON C. WILCOX.