HOW SHALL WE ANSWER? by S. O. James

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 29, 1901

HOW SHALL WE ANSWER?

By S. O. James

S. O. JAMES. (Terril, Iowa.)

Do you truly believe that Jesus will soon, very soon, visit this earth again; and that every unprepared soul will then meet with a dreadful doom? that only a few, a very few, of those who claim to know the Master will be recognized and accepted by Him? Do you believe that you may know, while here on earth, that you are saved by His blood, and that you are hourly walking in His light,—by His loving side, perhaps you prefer to say, stepping safely in His footsteps? Do you have a new and fresh experience daily in dying with and for Him? Does the spirit in you mourn deeply sometimes at the thought that He is so little loved by those whom He died to redeem, and that you are so poorly prepared to help them?

If it were announced from heaven that your probation would end in the course of another year, can you tell how you would act between this time and that? Would you sleep as do others? would you let trifles hinder you from working? would you yield to sin as readily as in the past? Would you not rather be remarkably earnest, using every means in your reach, that you might meet the mind of the Holy One, the Judge of all the earth, that when called to lay off the armor and meet your Captain, it might be with joy instead of shame? Some time in the near future, the last precious year and month and day will come to you. Could you answer to your loving Creator to-day, if called so to do, saying with Paul, “I have fought a good fight, . . . I have kept the faith”?

I ask these questions with a tender regard; for many are being cheated of that which Christ has dearly bought for them. “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.”