p. 187 | PETER'S INQUIRY by M. Wood

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 12, 1879

PETER'S INQUIRY.

By M. Wood

The apostle has just been calling our attention to a most solemn event, the end of the world with its terrors to the wicked, when he makes this most pertinent inquiry, “What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness?” This language is addressed to Christians, to those who are looking forward to the time when all these things which now appear shall be dissolved. This warning of Peter is not an exception. God has ever pointed toward the storm before it has burst upon the world. We might cite many passages of Scripture which would substantiate this statement, but time and space forbid.

God has ever warned before he has punished. He has pleaded before he has executed his threatenings. Christ has been as untiring in his pleadings as we have been wilful and stubborn in rebelling.

Who can believe the chapter which contains Peter’s inquiry, and be hoarding up means to be burned when the elements melt with fervent heat? Some people talk loud and long, even eloquently, about the coming of Him who is altogether lovely and chiefest of ten thousand; but when our faith in the coming One is weighed by Paul’s weights of filthy lucre, the scale invariably shows what manner of persons we are.

Who can believe Christ’s words, that this generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled, and yet be living in open violation of God’s holy law, at enmity with his brother, sowing discord among the brethren, living on the faults of others, and poisoning the minds of the weak lambs of the flock with matter conceived in his own deceitful heart?

We are too careless in our talk. We need to heed the admonition given by the Saviour, “Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” By so doing, when a weak brother or sister gets into the dark, and wanders from God, we shall not point them to the faults and failings of those who are fathers and mothers in Israel. “By their fruits ye shall know them.”

What your opinion or my opinion may be relative to a church and its discipline, will not add a feather’s weight for or against it in the great gathering day. Peter was sharply rebuked by the Saviour for meddling with those things which did not concern him. Our work is an individual work. Let every man build over against his house, weed his own garden, and seek by earnest persevering effort to connect himself more firmly to Heaven and become a living branch of the true Vine.

What we most need to-day as a people is a new conversion, a fresh baptism, a deeper experience in the things of God. If ever I longed to be like Christ, it is now. My earnest prayer shall be, Lord arouse thy slumbering church. Just think of it, dear reader, a dying world in its last hours of probation! What manner of persons ought we to be?

M. WOOD.