The Importance of Conference Meetings
By Joshua Philbrick
DEAR BRETHREN AND SISTERS: Sometimes, while reading the REVIEW, I have thought that the design of the Conference Department is not always fulfilled as the Lord would be pleased that it should be. How can we exhort one another as we see the day approaching, unless we use the power of speech, or the pen? If we really love the conference meeting, ought we not, according to our several relations, to make an earnest effort to be there? How precious it is to unite our hearts and voices, while in conference meeting, to encourage each other in striving to overcome. And it seems necessary to unite all our powers often in battling with our fallen enemy. Thank the Lord, my brethren and sisters, for the third angel’s message. What a mighty fortification of strength the Lord has reared here for the safety of his dear people! What a refuge from the winds of doctrine that are not in accordance and harmony with the sanctuary work! Oh! how solemn is the time in which we are living, the investigative Judgment. I did not realize, when I embraced and confessed the third angel’s message and its work, that it would lead me to an investigation of my life from the beginning of my accountability to the present time, as it has done, and is doing. And as I beheld the long, deep-laid plan of Satan, to cause me to transgress mental and physical law, it causes me almost unbounded sorrow. And I would deeply feel the long-suffering of God, through Jesus Christ, in that he has spared poor, unworthy me, and through his great love wants me to be saved by the merits of his precious blood. Praise the Lord! Oh! for a heart to continually praise his blessed name, for his great mercy and goodness to me. Oh! what unbounded love! Jesus has borne my every grievous sin in his own lovely body, and died in the guilty sinner’s stead! Amazing love divine! Shall I ever return unto him the reverence that is due his sacred name? Shall I ever be permitted to enter the joy of my Lord, and to have the crown, the immortal prize? I love the Lord’s dear people; and may they be especially sustained who have the great burden of the work—kept from the continual designs of Satan, by the power of God through Jesus Christ. Let us awake, and put away every sin, be clothed with Christ’s own spotless robe of purity, that we may meet on Mount Zion. JOSHUA PHILBRICK. Sullivan Co., N. H.