Life Insurance by Clarence Santee

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 19, 1902

Life Insurance

By Clarence Santee

CLARENCE SANTEE

SHOULD a Seventh-day Adventist insure his life when his business leads him every day into dangerous places? This question was recently asked me by a brother who contemplated renewing a life insurance he had taken several years ago. There are many Seventh-day Adventists who are regularly paying out money for a life insurance. They feel that if they should die, in this way their families would be provided for. It is easy also to cite families who have lost the husband and father, and as a result have been reduced to close circumstances.

It is true that in some cases where a man has carried a life insurance, and died, his family has received quite a sum. These things can be pointed to as an outward evidence that this step is desirable. But what is the truth of the matter? Many do not know that God, who looks inward, and sees the end from the beginning, has spoken very positively of this. I will quote a few sentences:—

“I was shown that Sabbath-keeping Adventists should not engage in life insurance. This is a commerce with the world which God does not approve. Those who engage in this enterprise are uniting with the world, while God calls his people to come out from among them and to be separate. Said the angel, ‘Christ has purchased you by the sacrifice of his life. What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God; and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.’ . . .

“Life insurance is a worldly policy which leads our brethren who engage in it to depart from the simplicity and purity of the gospel. Every such departure weakens our faith, and lessens our spirituality. . . . As a people, we are in a special sense the Lord’s. Christ has bought us. Angels that excel in strength surround us. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without the notice of our Heavenly Father. Even the hairs of our head are numbered. God has made provision for his people. He has a special care for them, and they should not distrust his providence by engaging in a policy with the world.

“God designs that we should preserve in simplicity and holiness our peculiarity as a people. Those who engage in this worldly policy invest means which belong to God, which he has intrusted to them to use in his cause, to advance his work. But few will realize any returns from life insurance, and without God’s blessing even these will prove an injury instead of a benefit. Those whom God has made his stewards have no right to place in the enemy’s ranks the means which he has intrusted to them to use in his cause.

“Satan is constantly presenting inducements to God’s chosen people to attract their minds from the solemn work of preparation for the scenes just in the future. He is in every sense of the word a deceiver, a skillful charmer. He clothes his plans and snares with coverings of light borrowed from heaven. . . . Through this union with the world, faith becomes weakened, and means which should be invested in the cause of present truth are transferred to the enemy’s ranks. Through these different channels Satan is skillfully draining the purses of God’s people, and for it the displeasure of the Lord is upon them.” — “Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. I, pages 549-551.

These statements are plain, and certainly, being from God, are consistent. We are a peculiar people. We believe that the Lord will sustain us, our wives, and our children, in the time that the famine and pestilence are causing a thousand to fall at our side, and ten thousand at our right hand. I say, We believe this. Do we? Sometimes it is good to come up against that which uncovers our own hearts. How easy to think that we have strength, courage, and faith, when by test we find it all falls in abject doubt and weakness. If we have faith to believe that God will keep us then, why not believe that he will care for us in the lesser troubles now? “If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?” Jer. 12:5.

The Testimony quoted says, “He has a special care for them.” Speaking of his church as a vineyard, God says, “I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.” Isa. 27:3.

He has bought us with a price. We are not our own. I was acquainted with a brother who, being afraid that he might soon die, insured his life for quite a sum. He was told that there would be small dues to pay when some person who had insured, and thus become a member of the company, died, but that, as the company increased in numbers, the dues would be less, until he would carry his insurance with practically no cost. He paid the first dues of twenty dollars for a membership. Within fifteen months he had paid forty-five dollars. Still the dues came, and then, should he fail to pay the assessments, he would

forfeit, after a time, what he had already paid. He did not want to lose that which he had paid, so he paid again. He finally let go of the thing. He is still alive, but about fifty dollars was lost to himself and to the cause.

There are those who will read these lines who are living over some part of the experience of this brother. No matter in which part their present experience lies, the Lord warns them in regard to paying any more. We are told by the spirit of prophecy that “without God’s blessing” the money received by the family after the husband’s death, “will prove an injury instead of a blessing.” The best inheritance now, above all times, that can be left to the wife and children is an example of implicit faith; for they will live in the time when insurances will all fail, when gold will be thrown, as useless, into the streets, when no man can in any way provide for another, but “the just shall live by faith.” Heb. 10:38. It cannot be the faith of another. Habakkuk says, “The just shall live by his faith.” Hab. 2:4.

Worldlings are going headlong into all these companies, unions, trusts, associations, etc., because of the fear they have of the outcome of the future. Right in this time the Lord thus exhorts those who are willing to listen: “Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid.” Isa. 8:12.

“In my Father’s blessed keeping, I am happy, safe, and free; While his eye is on the sparrow, I shall not forgotten be.”