A Time for Loyalty by Ellen G. White

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 9, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 35.

A Time for Loyalty

By Ellen G. White

By Mrs. E. G. White

GOD may bear long with the sins of men, but in His own time He will vindicate His authority. Altho the wicked may say, “My way is hid from the Lord,” yet when His interposition is needed, He will show that He beholds all the works of the children of men. In the days of Noah, the wickedness of man became so great that it was necessary for God to assert His authority and punish the transgressors of His law.

A crisis had come, and the Lord declared the limits of His forbearance toward that guilty race. He sent His faithful servant with a message of warning, giving them one hundred and twenty years in which to turn from their sins. They rejected and despised God’s love, and when the measure of their iniquity was full, when the boundaries of divine mercy were passed, the Lord swept that wicked race from the earth by the waters of the Flood.

As men again increased, they departed from the Lord, and then Abraham was made the depositary of God’s law. When the Israelites, through their long bondage in Egypt, had to a great degree lost the knowledge of that law, the Lord Himself proclaimed it from Sinai, in the hearing of all the people. The nations of the earth were given to idolatry; it was to preserve the children of men from total apostasy, that the Lord manifested His mighty power in bringing the Israelites out of Egypt, and establishing them in the land of Canaan.

God’s people had been crying to Him with humiliation and fasting, that the wickedness of the wicked might come to an end. And while He manifested His power as an avenger to the wicked, He would also appear as the protector of the righteous. Tho their prayers might long have seemed unheard, yet in God’s own time they saw that He had given ear to their supplications, and answered them by terrible things in righteousness.

In every age, God’s judgments have been visited upon the earth because men transgressed His law. What, then, have we to expect as we behold the wickedness which prevails at the present day? An ungrateful people, forgetful of God’s care, His long forbearance, and His unnumbered blessings, are showing contempt for His holy law. Many of the acknowledged leaders in the church and in the nation, break, and teach others to break, that law, as sacred to God as His own throne and name. It is time for the Lord Himself to assert His authority in the earth. And He is doing this, by fires, by floods, by tempests. He removes His protecting, providential care, and visits His judgments upon the children of men.

In these days of peril, shall we show less devotion to the truth of God, and less fervent attachment to His law, than in former years? The very condition of things exists which Christ declared would be, prior to His second coming in power and glory. The prevailing ungodliness tends to paralyze and even to destroy true faith and piety. But this is the very time when the gold of Christian integrity will shine brightest, in contrast to the dross of hypocrisy and corruption. Now is the time for Christ’s chosen to show their devotion to His service,— the time for all His followers to bear the noblest testimony for their Master by standing firm against the prevailing current of evil.

As we see the results which have followed a disregard of God’s law,— dishonesty, theft, licentiousness, drunkenness, and murder,— we are prepared to say with the psalmist, “I love Thy commandments above gold; yea,

above fine gold;” “in keeping of them there is great reward.” When the divine law is set aside, the greatest misery will result, both to families and to society. Our only hope of better things is to be found in a faithful adherence to the precepts of Jehovah. Infidel France once tried the experiment of rejecting the authority of God. What scenes of horror followed! Men cast aside the divine law as a yoke of bondage, and in their boasted liberty they placed themselves under the rule of the veriest tyrant. Anarchy and bloodshed ruled that terrible day. “It was then demonstrated to the world that the surest way to undermine the foundation of order and government, is to set at naught the law of God.”

Let us remember that “by the law is the knowledge of sin.” The commandments of God convict the sinner of his guilt; but that perfect law has been obeyed by Christ in our stead, and through faith in Him we are released from our great debt, and are placed where, in His strength, we can render obedience to God. Instead of feeling that we are now in the slightest degree excusable in further transgression, we shall realize as never before the justice of God’s claims upon us, and the sacred character of His law, since Christ must die to maintain its authority.

Erelong the obedient will see the blessed results that follow the keeping of all God’s commandments, and the transgressors of His law will reap the reward of their doings. The Judge of all the earth will vindicate His insulted authority. Already we see His judgments in the land. And the end is not yet. He will work until sin and sinners are destroyed from the earth.