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WHAT SHALL I DO?

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 6, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 1.

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“WHAT SHALL I DO?”

One of Many.

THE following quotation from a letter received not long ago is representative of questions rising in many other honest hearts. The prophet, looking forward to that time when “the day of the Lord is near,” saw the very condition of things beginning to be widely manifest now. On the one side are the claims of God; on the other are the demands of the world, the exigencies and necessities of life—and “multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision; for the great day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.” Joel 3:14. Here is the letter:—
EDITOR SIGNS OF THE TIMES, Oakland, Cal.—Dear Sir: I am trying to lead a Christian life. I want to do my Master’s will. I believe I am willing to sacrifice personal desire, comfort, or material interests for the sake of pleasing God. I believe the day we call Saturday is the seventh day mentioned; but how can I keep the Sabbath (Saturday) when the laws of the country compel men to refrain from labor on Sunday instead of Saturday, and my financial condition makes it necessary for me to work six days in order to provide for the needs of my family? What shall I do in order to be faithful to God and faithful to those He has intrusted to my care? If you can suggest a way out of this labyrinth of inconsistencies and show me what course to take, I shall be grateful.”
In the first place, the condition of things which our correspondent describes, has to a greater or less extent existed in every great crisis of the ages. The things of sight and sense have often seemed against the law of righteousness. The laws of nations have often been contrary to God’s law. It was so in the days of Moses, and Elijah, and Jeremiah, and Daniel, and our blessed Lord, and the apostles, and during the Dark Ages.
From a worldly point of view, Christianity presents no easy lot. Jesus Christ presents the way in these words: “Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he can not be My disciple.” See Luke 14:26–33. “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and then shall He reward every man according to his works.” Matt. 16:25–27. This is our duty as Jesus presents it. He says, “Follow Me.”
As regards our duty to government, the Christian can easily decide it. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” This leaves us no option. He who believes this, when divine and human laws come in conflict, must say with Peter, “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.” “We ought to obey God rather than men.” Acts 4:19; 5:29. Because Jesus did not keep the Sabbath as the authorities thought He ought, “therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus and sought to slay Him.” John 5:16. And He says, “If they [the world] have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.” John 15:18–20.
The foundations of the church of Christ were laid in the midst of persecution, when almost every act of worship brought the child of God in conflict with Rome. It is ever a choice between righteousness and sin, between freedom and slavery, between eternity and time; it is a matter of simply believing God. And it ever has been and ever will be— “Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne, But that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.”
Brother, it is a matter of faith in God, of loyalty to Christ. All power, all wisdom, infinite love, are His. Can you not trust Him? How true it is—
“We see dimly in the present what is small and what is great.”
We allow the little gain of the present to hide from us the exceeding riches of God’s glory. We permit the sordid dust of time to blind us to the gold of God’s blessings. The fear of man hides us from the awful yet loving presence of God.
Do we need to present His promises? Here is one: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things [to eat and drink and wear] will be added unto you. Take therefore no [“anxious,” R. V.] thought for the morrow.” Matt. 6:33, 34. Read Mark 10:29, 30. All power is God’s. He can open the Red Sea, or roll back Jordan’s swelling flood. He can bring water out of the rock or bread from the sky. He can multiply the oil or send ravens with food. We may not see how He can do it; but all wisdom, all the resources of the universe, are His; He will do all things well for His children. “No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.” Ps. 84:11. If He loved us so much when sinners as to give His only-begotten Son, will He withhold from us as His obedient children what we need? See Rom. 8:32. Can we thus charge God? and can we not trust Him?
The only way to be faithful to all others is to be faithful first and last and always to God; and, O, “blessed is the man” whose “delight is in the law of the Lord.” To such God will pour out the riches of His grace here, “the peace that passeth understanding,” and make him a blessing to all others around him.
To this brother and all others in doubt would we say, Believe and obey God; follow Jesus Christ, and at the end of the journey you will say, “Not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord our God spake concerning us; all are come to pass.” The commandments are to you, and to you are the promises, that you may do and be blessed in the doing.