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AN OPEN LETTER

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 22, 1901

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 78, No. 43.

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AN OPEN LETTER.

By Chas. P. Whitford

MY DEAR FRIEND: It is sad to contemplate how few seem at all desirous, much less anxious, to know the way of life and salvation. The multitudes are as careless and indifferent to the signs of the times as were those who lived in the days when God proclaimed a message of warning through faithful Noah. For one hundred and twenty years the message was sounding forth to the inhabitants of the Noachian world. A flood of water is coming. True to the warning message, the flood came and destroyed the people. But they need not have been thus overtaken and destroyed. Their attention was called to the fact that the earth was to be flooded with water. A means of escape was also provided, but they would not accept the plan.
Thus, says the Saviour, shall it be in the end of the world. The Lord will not leave the people of this generation to perish without first warning them of the danger, and pointing out a way of escape. I will quote the warning as I find it recorded in Rev. 14:9-12: “If any man worship the Beast and his Image, . . . the same [this same man] shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation. . . . Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”
There is not such a solemn message of warning and severe denunciation of wrath to be found elsewhere in the Bible. Notice, it is “the wine of the wrath of God” which is to be poured out upon those who “worship the Beast.” Rev. 15:1, in speaking of the seven last plagues, says, “For in them is filled up the wrath of God”—full of wrath, that is, wrath “without mixture.” Rev. 14:10. In the sixteenth chapter we have a description of the wrath. It is terrible to contemplate that the teeming millions of earth’s inhabitants will “worship the Beast and his Image,” and as a consequence drink the unmingled wrath of God. But it must be so. In the days before the flood they were eating and drinking to excess, going on in a wild and careless career of business and pleasure, and “knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”
The trouble then was that the people would not believe the Lord. It is just the same to-day. But few believe the seventh day is the Sabbath, but God says that it is. The Bible says, “God is not a man, that He should lie.” Num. 23:19. The people and their ministers say the first day is the Sabbath; in this they flatly contradict the great God. But in saying that Sunday is the Sabbath they do agree with the popes of Rome and the whole Catholic world, and thereby place themselves on the side of Rome. They not only say Sunday is the Sabbath, but they keep it; and Paul says, in Rom. 6:16, “that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are.” So, then, in keeping Sunday they are doing just what the warning message of God tells them not to do, under penalty of drinking the wine of His wrath.
It is a serious thing to charge God with being a liar. When He states a fact, and we do not believe Him, that is exactly what we do. Here is the proof: “He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar.” 1 John 5:10.
Seventh-day Adventists are a peculiar people. Titus 2:14. They believe the Lord. When the Bible says the seventh day is the Sabbath, and the popes of Rome and the whole Protestant world say that the first day of the week is the Sabbath, Seventh-day Adventists have no hesitancy in deciding which is right. They have no reason to doubt the Lord’s word; consequently they cannot believe those who contradict His word.
Why were the people in Noah’s time destroyed? — Simply because they would not believe theLord. Had the people believed the Lord, they would have been saved. It is faith that saves to-day. Faith would have saved then. “For by grace are ye saved through faith.” Eph. 2:18. But, says one, “I believe. Why am I not saved?” — Simply because you have no faith. Faith works. Read Gal. 5:6, and you will see that “faith works by love.” The principle, then, upon which faith works is love, and love always renders cheerful, willing obedience. Where there is no obedience, there is no love; and where there is no love, there is no faith.
If one thinks he has faith while living in known disobedience, he is deceived. Faith in Noah’s time would have enabled the people to obey the voice of God, and thus have been saved from the destruction by which they were overtaken. Faith to-day in the message of warning which God is causing to be heralded to earth’s remotest bounds, will so work in men that they will be found keeping the commandments of God rather than rendering obedience to earthly powers which are in opposition to God.
The message for to-day is, “If any man worship the Beast and his Image, and receive his mark, . . . the same [that same man, no matter who he is, or where he is] shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.” But who believes the message to be of God? — A few despised Seventh-day Adventists. The multitudes do not, and will not, believe the Lord. The Lord says they will not believe, and He has never told a lie. “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” It is safe to believe the Lord, and there is no safety anywhere else. The sin of unbelief is the sin of the age. Faith is the connecting link between earth and heaven. Without faith it is impossible to please God. The converse must be true—with faith we can please Him. So then it is faith that brings us into harmony with God in the keeping of His commandments. CHAS. P. WHITFORD.