p. 51 | How, Where, and When by E. Southworth

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 12, 1875

How, Where, and When.

By E. Southworth

WILL you be saved from sin? The Lord says that you and I are by nature the children of wrath, because all have sinned.

1. How, then, will you be saved?

The Bible points out the way: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast.”

This grace and faith are found in Jesus, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. The rule is very plain. Believe on him, take him for your goodness, accept him for your daily life, and live. Do not wait for signs; for the very moment you knowingly decide to have him for your all, that moment he decides to save you, and your witness will consist in the consciousness of your belief. This is the work of his Spirit; you need no better, indeed you can have no better, evidence.

2. Where will you be saved?

Will it be in the future world? in Heaven? No; for no one ever enters there until he is saved with a new heart of holiness like God’s. You must, then, be saved in the earth. Christ came to this world, because souls must be saved here if anywhere. You should bear in mind that God so loved this world, and not the future, that he gave his Son for you here. The drowning man is taken while in the water, if ever saved. If not saved there, he is lost. So you must be taken by Christ while in sin, or be forever lost. “I am not come,” he says, “to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

3. When will you be saved?

At death? Probably not, if you purposely wait until that event. Facts are all against you. Your mind will most likely be clouded or deranged by sickness; or death may come unexpectedly and leave you no time!

A ministerial brother of the writer lay very low with fever. When a friend called to visit him he said with great tenderness, “O brother, if I had not long ago fixed this matter of faith and salvation, I could not do it now; I am too weak.” What a warning! Yet all who have borne testimony on this point agree that on a death-bed is the worst possible time to seek salvation.

The rule of sinning is also against you. If you be now really unwilling to turn to Christ at this moment, or if you neglect to do it, to-morrow will find you more unwilling, and nothing but a miracle can save you from this law of increasing guilt. But God has not promised to work such a miracle. Will you please read the seventh chapter of Romans?

Now is the day of salvation. Only give God your will and accept Christ in a common-sense way, and you may be saved this very moment. For we have the glorious promise of Love, that “whosoever will” may come.

It takes God no longer to save you in Jesus than it takes you to say in your heart, “I believe.”

Satan is just now whispering to you that this is foolishness, that you can’t have feeling or know at this moment that Christ saves you. But he is a liar and the father of it. Believe Jesus who drove the devil away, and who will drive him away from you. He has the word already to speak. Read Matt. 8: 5–13; John 5:24; and Mark 5:36.

“Be not afraid, only believe.”—E. Southworth.