Practical Thoughts on Scripture Subjects.
By John Nevins Andrews
We have to experience much pain in this life in parting with our dearest friends, yet duty plainly demands the sacrifice, and we must cheerfully make it for Christ’s sake. But all these seasons of separation are of no account when we consider the events before us. We separate now, hoping to meet again in this life; or if not in this life, then in the kingdom of God. But when the final decision of the Judgment is rendered, then there will be a separation so terrible that no words can express it: some to everlasting life, and some to the pains of the second death. Parents and children and friends must separate to meet no more. How will it be with us in that day? We must confess our sins. Our own good demands this. The honor of God and the interests of his cause do also demand it. But when we confess our sins we must not mix with it the justification of ourselves. Nor should we be so general and indefinite that there shall be no humiliation on our part. We must make clean work of putting away our sins. If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us. We must never be satisfied till the Spirit of God witnesses with our spirits. It is better to humble ourselves with genuine repentance than to go on unhumbled to the Judgment. There every knee will bow, but it will be too late. Let us attend to this work while it will be possible for us to put away our sins. Those who use this pernicious weed can desist if they have the heart to do it. Yet many persons are so wedded to this filthy idol that they will not put forth the requisite effort. They seek excuses of every kind, and perhaps resort to concealment as though, if they could hide from men the use of this abomination, they had nothing to fear from God. But their excuses are all of them founded in a lack of disposition to put away the sin. They lack the heart to make the great sacrifice, as they reckon it, of parting with this filthy and poisonous weed. They love its intoxicating power, and must have it. And so many of them, not able to satisfy their own consciences with their excuses, and therefore sensible that they cannot thus satisfy others, try to practice this sin, and yet keep it secret from the people of God. But this is an impossibility. This sin cannot be hid. Such is its offensive character that it will betray the transgressor. It is a sin that will find its authors out. Surely it is bad enough to be guilty of its use without being made a hypocrite in the effort to conceal the sin. The love of tobacco is stronger with many than the love of cleanliness, of purity, and of truth. This grim idol has to be worshiped at the sacrifice of these excellent and noble qualities. It is not different in principle from the worship of old Moloch which men honored with the sacrifice of their dearest objects of love. Such strange infatuation shows how direct is the connection of this evil habit with the power of the devil to lead men to ruin. If men desire eternal life, they must put away this evil thing. J. N. A.