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The Testimonies

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 2, 1873

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 42, No. 25.

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The Testimonies.

By E. O. Hammond

“The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” Ps. 19: 7.
It is to be feared that many of us fail to see the importance of heeding the testimony of the Lord Jesus, which is the spirit of prophecy. Rev. 12: 17 and 19: 10. Take, in connection with the scripture above quoted, Prov. 1: 22, 23. “How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my Spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.” The remainder of the chapter describes the terrible condition of those who do not heed the words of God given through the influence of the Spirit. “Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof. I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me.”
Right here is the famine described by the prophet Amos. “Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord; and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.” Amos 8: 11, 12. Then the work of our High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary will have been finished, and the gentle voice of mercy will be heard no more by a guilty world and heedless, lukewarm professors.
When the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel on account of their sin and the sin of their king, the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, but the Lord, in tender pity, said, “It is enough, stay now thy hand.” But in that terrible time to come, God’s unmingled wrath will be poured out upon the shelterless heads of those who did not choose the fear of the Lord; and those who have not heeded the counsels and reproofs given by the Spirit of God will be left to eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.
We, as a people, looked for our Lord in 1844; but what a mercy it was to us that he did not come at that time. We were not prepared to meet him. We were ignorantly trampling upon the unchangeable law of Jehovah. Not only the fourth precept of that law, but also the sixth,—not realizing that a course of living which would injure health and thereby shorten life, was a violation of the command, “Thou shalt not kill.” We were in a fearful condition. Some of us steeped in tobacco, and our moral sensibilities benumbed by stimulants, such as tea, coffee, and unwholesome articles used as food, and our minds weakened by intemperate eating and sexual excesses. This latter sin has done more to weaken the mental and physical powers of the human race than any other, for which they will have to answer at the bar of God. This is considered a delicate subject, and Satan loves to have it so; but the God of Heaven has spoken upon this point, as well as upon other points of health reform, and his servants should take his word and warn the people.
But, says one, I cannot bring my mind to believe that these testimonies are from God. To such, we would say, You and your unbelief will have to perish together. There are some who would not believe if one should rise from the dead and tell them, and if the Lord, himself, should speak from Heaven with an audible voice, they, like the unbelieving Jews of old, would say, “It thundered.” Every test which the Scriptures give us to prove the spirits, whether they be of God, has been applied, and these testimonies are proved to be dictated by the Spirit of God. They exalt Jesus Christ as the Son of God. They hold up the law of God as our only rule of right. They condemn sin, and expose the cunning deceptions of Satan.
May the Lord help us to heed the pure testimony, which will make wise the simple, though it cuts like a two-edged sword. We ought, truly, to be thankful that God still waits to be gracious, that he is showing us our sins and giving us time to put them away, and purify our souls by obedience to the truth. E. O. HAMMOND.