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The Tables Turned

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 22, 1872

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 40, No. 19.

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The Tables Turned.

By N. Orcutt

An interesting incident lately came to my knowledge which is too good to be lost. One of the isolated ones in Vermont—a sister who embraced the truth some nine years since, and who has only heard two or three discourses from preachers of our faith, in those nine years—last spring attended an advent meeting in a town adjoining the one in which she resides.
The preacher took for his text, on the occasion, the words, “It is written.” He congratulated his hearers that they found the truth written in the word of God. Said he: “That is our guide; but Seventh-day Adventists have to go to Battle Creek to the visions to learn what is truth; but we have the word of God, &c.”
At the close of his remarks, he gave liberty for others to speak, liberty which our lonely sister felt constrained to improve.
She told those present that she had kept the Sabbath of the Lord for several years, that it was not a yoke of bondage, but a day of joy and delight. That she did not have to go to Battle Creek to the visions, or to the man of sin who thought to change times and laws, to learn when the Sabbath day came, for, “It is written,” “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work.” That it was not written that it was the Sabbath of the Jew, but, “It is written” that it was the Sabbath of the Lord, and he had commanded us to keep it holy. This being the case, she felt under obligation to strive earnestly to be found among those who are endeavoring to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, that with them she might finally enter in through the gates into the city.
That preacher must have felt somewhat as the commander in battle who sees his batteries captured and turned against him, if he had discernment enough to realize what havoc his own guns were making with the fortress of error and misrepresentation which he had reared.
While we sincerely pity such for their blindness, we may be permitted to rejoice in the harmony and power of the truth, rejoice that it is impregnable, being hedged about by the brief words, “It is written.”
May the Lord bless and sustain the lonely ones and water the seed sown that others may be led to obey the truth, and be company for them in their pilgrimage to the promised land.
N. ORCUTT.
Jamaica, Vt.