Drawing Back by George Ide Butler

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 5, 1871

Drawing Back.

By George Ide Butler

DRAWING back from what? From something very important; for those who do so, draw back to perdition. Heb. 10:39. Then nothing short of destruction eternal awaits those who draw back. And, reader, it is you and I who are exposed to this danger. So it becomes us well to consider the subject and what we are in danger of drawing back from.

Our old-fashion theologians would tell us that it was drawing back, or backsliding in general, that is referred to in our text; such as losing our love for Christ and becoming a worldling, without even the form of godliness. But I shall try to give some reasons to show that something special is brought to view in this connection from which it is dangerous to “draw back,” and I believe many of us are in fearful danger of finding perdition if our faces are not set the other way. “For yet a little while and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry,” says the apostle. Does he mean that from the time he was writing this letter to the Hebrews, in A. D. 64, till Christ comes it would be but a little while? If Paul uses language in this way, certainly the conclusions of our opponents are legitimate, and we cannot tell the generation or century, or even in what thousand years Christ would come, and he would squarely contradict himself when he tells the brethren they will not be in darkness that that day should overtake them as a thief. And Christ, also, when he says after the appearance of certain signs, we may “know he is near, even at the door.” If eighteen hundred years are but a “little while,” how do we know but thousands of years more might also be included; for the one would no more contradict the established usages of language than the other. To be sure, with God, a thousand years is as one day, and eighteen centuries may be but a little while, but this epistle was not directed to God to instruct him, but to man; and I dare say, there never was a man but would think eighteen hundred years was a great “while.” As the apostle uses language intelligibly, we must understand him as speaking prophetically, looking forward to those who would be living at a time when his words would be true, and when the instruction would be fitting and important.

This manner of speaking prophetically in his epistles is used elsewhere by the same writer. For instance, when he speaks in 1 Thess. 4:17, “We which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.” Paul certainly knew he should not be alive and remain till Christ comes; for he plainly tells us in the second epistle his coming was in the far distance. So in the expression, “a little while,” he is speaking of a class who would move out on some important truth and be in danger of drawing back from it. And that truth was intimately connected with the Lord’s coming, and there would be a disappointment connected with it in reference to that event, making the assurance necessary that the event would be certain. “It will not tarry.” And all this at a time when the apostle could say with truth, his coming would be in a “little while.” What a striking argument we find between the position here laid down by the apostle and the great Advent experience. First the signs of Christ’s coming are given. The sun and moon are darkened, the stars fall in 1833. The next thing heard is the ringing tones of the advent proclamation among the hills of New England, till in a few years the world had heard the sound. The Lord is near, even at the door. Our Saviour declares this to be his position as soon as the signs were fulfilled. Matt. 24:33. So his people were authorized to make the world aware of it. The first message is proclaimed, bringing us down to the Judgment hour. And here comes a disappointment, a bitter one that tried the faith of all, and since that we have been living in the waiting time when it is duty to “watch,” Luke 12:32, 48, and in the time of the saints’ patience. “Here is the patience of the saints.” Where? Under the third angel’s message.

This time of patience is also brought to view in the scripture under consideration in Heb. 10:36. “For ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God ye might receive the promise.” And the very next thing the apostle says, he assures us it will be but a “little while” till Christ will come. These verses being connected by the word “for,” we understand the promise and the coming of Christ refer to the same thing. And as patience implies disappointment, we learn that just before the Saviour comes such a disappointment will be met by God’s people, and that the grace above referred to will be called into requisition. They had done the will of God in proclaiming Christ’s coming near, and the coming of the Judgment hour. While passing through this bitter trial of their faith, great patience is necessary. They are urged not to cast away their confidence, for in that there is great “recompense of reward.” The apostle seems to realize, as forcibly as any of us can, that “watching” is a trying process. Any of us who have waited long for expected friends, or spent the dreary night watching for the cars, know how it is in common things. So the Adventists, who have been in this condition spiritually for ten or twenty years, can realize it as none others can. The evidences seem clear that the coming of Christ is near, but still we look. “Now the just shall live by faith.” Faith in what? Faith in the very subject under consideration. “But if any man draw back, My soul shall have no pleasure in him.” Draw back from what? From the very position this scripture recognizes the Adventists as having taken—an advanced position and expectation that Jesus’ coming is at the door. And the apostle tells us plainly if we do “draw back” from this, we “draw back to perdition,” eternal destruction. There is some importance, then, in the Advent doctrine. And here is where we take square issue with any man or sect who tells us that it makes no difference whether we believe this doctrine or not. God’s word places his people in the last days in the position of waiting, expectation. His people will stand there, must stand there, to meet his approval; and perdition is the penalty of not being found there when the light has been fully given, and time sufficient for an intelligent decision. “If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.” These words, of late, have come with great force to my mind. If I understand this correctly, God is more displeased with the man who “draws back” from this light, than with those who have never embraced it. Should not this be so? Have not such had more than common light? Shall we not be responsible for the light we receive? And again, should we not expect that as soon as a man began to “draw back” he would lose the evidences of God’s love from his heart, the witness of his Spirit? And is not this the condition of many among us as they begin to put off the coming of that day, in the same ratio, the love of God, the sweet assurance that we are his, also leaves us? And when our faith in the nearness of this glorious event has been strengthened, does not the darkness flee away, till we get out into the world and lose the sense of these things, and our minds run out after large farms, and future provisions for our children, and we think as it has been a long time since it was proclaimed, it may yet be a long time before it will come, and we shall have time to secure this world and also the other.

Do we not then immediately realize that God has “no pleasure” in us? I believe this is evident to every Adventist who knows anything of the converting power of the Holy Spirit. What a terrible condition those are in spiritually who tell us the coming of the Lord does not seem as near as when I first believed. I never heard one express such a sentiment but that there was also a declaration of backsliding connected with it. The two things go together, and will as long as God says he has no pleasure in those who take the “drawing back” position; and I fear the number of those among us occupying it may be reckoned by thousands. Not many perhaps would confess it by word, and some do not realize it themselves. But actions show where they are. We know how men did act when they really thought the Lord was coming in 1844. The service of God was precious. Secret prayer was attended to. God’s word was read. Property looked small. The fashions of the world somehow dropped off which are now so hard to pull off. Men’s minds had something else to dwell upon than how to lay up wealth for children’s children. Yes, the nearness of Christ’s coming is what we need to separate us from the world, the flesh, and all our enemies that are overcoming us. The world has such a hold upon men we need this to break us off from it.

“But,” says one, “how shall I regain this faith, if I have lost it?” I know of no better way than to go over and over the evidences given in the Bible of its nearness, accompanied with earnest prayer that the Holy Spirit may give them force upon the mind. Dwell upon them, and consider such solemn declarations as we have been giving, and draw in the wanderings of the mind after the world and its vanities. I am satisfied the devil is deceiving a great many on this point, and that they are looking away off in the distance, away from the source of light, until it is evident to everybody, unless it be themselves, that their light has become darkness, and that God has “no pleasure in them.” Brethren and sisters, this “drawing back” is to “perdition.” Let us rather “believe to the saving of the soul.” For the just shall live by faith. GEO. I. BUTLER.

Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, Nov. 15, 1871.