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Pilate’s Question

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 26, 1871

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 39, No. 2.

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Pilate’s Question.

By Matilda Wolden

“What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called Christ?” Are you in trouble? they asked Pilate. Yes, he replied, I have offered to release Jesus, but the people shout for Barabbas. They are determined to destroy Jesus, but I find no fault in him. What shall I do with him? And this has troubled more than Pilate. Thousands have asked it since his day when troubles and temptations were crowding them to make a choice. There is no escape from it. People may try to get away from it, but the question is always before us. God says, Choose. It is either Christ or the pleasures of this world; and they can scarcely go arm in arm with each other. There must be a choice. If you choose pleasures, then follow them in all their giddy rounds. But if you choose Christ, then forsake the pleasures of this life and learn a deeper and a higher joy in doing his works. This is the only way. If riches or fame open to our eyes a deep mine or a mountain hight of glory or of power, then the voice comes again, Make your choice. Take the riches of earth, and the fame that men can give you, or choose Christ and seek for glory, immortality, and eternal life, by walking in his ways, and by doing his commandments.
Christ or the world? Which? That is the great question all the time forced upon us. Here is a robber, Barabbas, and here is the purest, the holiest, the best of all, Christ. Will you choose Barabbas, and crucify Jesus and win an earthly coronation? or will you choose Christ and be crucified on earth, but wear a crown in Heaven? That was Pilate’s trouble; and with the roaring mob in his ears he said, Release Barabbas and crucify Jesus. Reader, how will you answer it? Will you answer it for life, and joy, and Heaven? or for death and sadness? Let these words ring forever in our ears when we are in trouble as to our course. What shall I do with Jesus which is called Christ? May the Lord help us to make our choice, to choose Christ who has given himself for us.
“Jesus, I my cross have taken, All to leave and follow thee; All things else have I forsaken, Thou from hence my all shalt be; Perish every fond ambition, All I’ve sought, or hoped, or known; Yet how rich is my condition, While I prove the Lord my own.”
MATILDA WOLDEN.
Sangamon Co., Ill.