Your ShelfYour Projects

FEW OR MANY

10%

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 16, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 42.

Read the full edition

FEW OR MANY.

By A. R. Ogden

MANY people decide a question as the masses decide; but this is a false principle, and may lead to a fatal mistake. When God speaks, it is the duty, and should be the joy, of all His creatures reverently to submit to His infinite wisdom.
God’s holy law, the Ten Commandments, is the grand constitution of the universe—the foundation of the divine government; for there can be no government without law. How, then, can any think or teach that that law is a thing of the past? Let us rather believe it to be eternal,—like its Author, pure, holy, perfect, eternal, unchangeable. Ps. 19:7; 89:34; 119:89; Matt. 5:17–19; James 2:10; Eccl. 12:13.
As sin increases, as rebellion against God’s rule and government becomes more general, the harder will it be to stand for God and His law in a world that hates both. The one who stands alone, so far as this world is concerned, but with God, is on the strong side. Yet it is so natural to go with the crowd. It is so easy to float down stream.
The trial of faith comes when God reveals some unpopular truth, and we are compelled to stand with and for that truth, or decide against Him. In every age this has been the case. Some truth of God has been unpopular,—a test of character. But when divine light is revealed, it must be accepted, or it becomes darkness. John 12:35. To decide against God and truth is to decide against eternal life.
God is to-day revealing the Sabbath truth. He declares, “The ‘seventh day is the Sabbath,” and commands, “Remember the Sab-‘bath day to keep it holy.” So it will always be. No amount of reasoning or theorizing will ever change these statements of truth. One may bring one excuse, another some other human reason; but will these excuses stand in the judgment? Let each decide to stand for God and His law (the truth), even tho there should not be another faithful, loyal soul in the whole world.
“Not every one that saith, Lord, Lord, . . . but he that doeth.” Matt. 7:21; Rom. 2:13.
Let us be up and doing. Soon the harvest will be past, and the summer ended; and shall it be said, “And we are not saved”?
Ellsworth, Kan.
A. R. OGDEN.