How They Became Convinced
[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.] I was a church member honestly desiring to be in harmony with God. I believed that the law expressed in the Ten Commandments had no existence till given at Sinai, and that its scope was measured by God's dealings with ancient Israel. Hear this: “And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in His temple the ark of His testament; and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.” Rev. 11:19. This text was brought to my special notice by a Seventh-day Adventist minister in connection with the Sabbath question; and, honestly, there was a thrill went through me which had he known about, he would have been even more persevering in showing me the Sabbath truth. What was in that ark?—Certainly the Ten Commandments known as the moral law of God. What room now to confine its scope to the Lord's dealings with ancient Israel? There are the heavenly hosts of whom it is said: “They do His commandments, hearkening to the voice of His word.” If the blessings enjoyed by the angels come from doing His commandments, my relation to those commandments is surely of eternal importance. Another text came with overwhelming force to my mind: “I had not known sin, but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” Rom. 7:7. I knew the tenth commandment of that law in the ark, seen by the prophet in the temple in heaven, said, “Thou shalt not covet,” and candidly I needed not to be reminded of the language of the Fourth Commandment of that law. God's demands were plain. I saw my Saviour in a new light. Sin—transgression of the law—had separated me from God. The yawning gulf was spanned by the death of His Son “who knew no sin.” My only course, if I would have peace of soul, was to render full obedience to that law. No words at my command could express the blessings which came to me with the acceptance of the Sabbath truth; and when this stammering tongue is loosed by the thrill of immortality, in the “ages to come,” I will tell the “exceeding riches of His grace” who bridged that gulf of death (the wages of sin, made known by the law) and placed me in harmony with “Thy commandments” which are “exceeding broad.” Dear reader, are you sharing these blessings? If not, why not? Come, think about it. A. M. DART. THE Third Angel's Message found me twenty-six years ago, a class leader and superintendent of a Sunday-school, also a steward in the M. E. Church in the suburbs of Baltimore city. The scriptures that led me to the observance of the Sabbath were Dan. 7:25 (telling me of a power that would persecute God's people and attempt to change His law) and 2 Thess. 2:3, 4 (telling who that power is), with Matt. 5:17 (showing the utter impossibility of such a thing being done). Those scriptures settled my mind upon the Sabbath question. I want to say right here that the good, old Review and the SIGNS OF THE TIMES did noble work in feeding my soul in those days, and have been the best side-lights to the Bible I have been able to obtain ever since. May God continue to bless those faithful messengers. JOHN F. JONES.