p. 42 | It Was Your Own Fault

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 21, 1873

“It Was Your Own Fault.”

“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Gal. 6: 2.

“It was all your own fault. You have no one to blame but yourself. You would go your own way, and now you must bear the consequences as best you can.”

My dear friends, have any of you heard such a speech as this? Have any of you spoken such words yourselves, to one with whom you dwell in the same house—one whom you love, or ought to love, very dearly? And do you who speak such words, and speak them—as it must be if they are spoken at all—from your heart, do you call yourselves Christians, servants of Christ, doing the will of God? Look into the full import of these words, and see what likeness they bear to the teaching and example of Him whose followers you would be. Examine into the state of a heart from whence such words could proceed, and see if it be a fit abode for Him who bore the blame of all our sins, and patiently suffered for us the deep displeasure of his Father in Heaven.

“It is all his own fault,” you tell your brother in his distress. You make it clear to him that you will not share his burden of blame. He might have hoped that you would bear a little for him; so you hasten to explain that you are clear, you are free; you will not touch his load, except to press it harder upon him; you heap it all upon him; he is bowed down under it, and you consider that he has his deserts.

“He would have his own way,” you tell him. Thus you remind him, in the midst of his distress for his error of judgment, that he was obstinate as well as foolish.

You think he has not enough to bear in the consequences of his mistake, and you take the opportunity to strike him when he is down, to dwell upon his faults, and thus make a little heavier the burden which you have already refused to share. Alas! is this bearing the infirmities of the weak?

Is it doing to others as you would that they should do to you? Is it looking not on your own things, but on the things of others? And can it be pleasing in His sight who bade us love each other, and do to each other as he has loved and done to us? Dear friends, as you feel the pain of being blamed, whether justly or unjustly, I pray you be on your guard against the temptation of laying blame on others.

If a parcel be left behind, a wrong turn taken, an umbrella lost, do not turn upon your companion and say, “It was all your own fault.” Is it possible that it can soothe the vexation which the mishap has caused you, to annoy and irritate your friend with accusations which, whether true or not, are certainly unkind? If so—if it does indeed gratify you to distress another—then consider, I once more pray you, what spirit you are of. Do not flatter yourself that you said it for his good, when you let loose your temper upon him. It may do him good, if he has grace to take it meekly; but your feelings and your motives were anything but kind; and we have the best authority for saying that the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. —Ch. Treas.