[Believing it would be of interest to our readers, the editor of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES has asked Sabbath-keeping ministers and evangelical workers to tell in a few words the scripture or scriptures, the truths and principles, which constrained them to accept the unpopular truth of the seventh-day Sabbath. These testimonies must not exceed 500 words. Let us hear from all.]
CXIX.
In 1855 I joined the United Brethren Church in Lisbon, Iowa. I then promised the Lord that whatever His Word taught that I would do. I had been taught that the Lord’s Sabbath was changed, and took it for the truth without questioning. The winter of 1857-58 Brethren Hart and Sperry came to Iowa preaching the Sabbath. While listening to the first discourse, showing that the law could not be made void or changed (Matt. 5:17, 18; Rom. 3:3, 4), the question was settled forever with me. Christ obeyed the law, showing us that it could be kept. He set us an example to walk and do as He did while here on earth. Can any who rests on the first day say, I have kept the Sabbath Jesus kept while on earth? The commandment reads the same to-day as it read when the blessed Saviour was on the earth—“the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord.” The judgment day will come, and the unchangeable law will read, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work.” I love Thy law, O Lord.
D. T. SHIREMAN.
CXX.
When I was converted I felt called to preach the Gospel, and at once set about preparing for the Methodist ministry. In 1892 I accompanied Bishop J. M. Thoburn to India, and took work in Singapore, Malaysia. There I met and labored with Brother R. W. Munson, then presiding elder at Singapore, but now a Seventh-day Adventist missionary at Padang, Sumatra. It was he who examined me in the required studies and in the Malay language. Milton’s “Paradise Lost” gave me the true standpoint of Bible study. A book on the Catacombs, by Benjamin Scott, gave me an insight into the influence of papal compromise; and I was further convinced of this by my own observation of Catholic methods among the heathen. On account of illness in my family, I returned to America.
After wide reading I despaired of finding a clear and comprehensive system of interpreting Scripture symbolism, and I drifted doctrinally farther from every one, as I thought. But I always felt sure the Holy Spirit placed these things in the Book to be understood. Convinced of immersion, I repudiated the sprinkling of my childhood as a papal perversion, but I could not get the Baptists to immerse me unless I joined them. From the Russellites I got the truth of the annihilation of the wicked.
Finally I took to independent preaching on the street corners. At this time my wife essayed on several occasions to unite with some sect, but some inward check withheld her. Meanwhile an Adventist prayer-meeting was held with an invalid who lived by us, and I expostulated with the elder, telling him this unconverted woman could not be pulled two ways by Methodists and Adventists; that it made no difference which day was the Sabbath, and that there was no mark of the beast on me. Whereupon they all quietly withdrew, and I suppose they all prayed for me.
A short time afterward, in a mixed spirit of curiosity and fun, I passed before a tent where Brethren Ballenger and Simpson were preaching. I tackled them on the obligation of the law, the change of the Sabbath, the mark of the beast, and kindred themes. Little did I dream of what a landslide of God’s truth I was invoking, or what heavy artillery I was unmasking on my devoted head. Suffice it to say that before I left I was well stocked with a judicious selection of reading matter.
As I see more and more the looming outlines of the divine plan and the great controversy, I find all Scripture texts like disciplined troops fall into ranks, companies, regiments, brigades, divisions, and corps, like Israel camped about the sanctuary. Surely God has piloted me around the shoals of error and through the fogs of prejudice by a way I knew not, and to Him be all the glory forevermore. Amen.
