Let Your Light Shine by Charles H. Foster

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 30, 1873

Let Your Light Shine.

By Charles H. Foster

“Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.”

These words of our Saviour are applicable to the people of God at the present time, and I would that we all might heed them. It is evident that the more light we have on God’s word, the more we shall have to answer for in the day of Judgment. It is really alarming to consider the power that Satan has to cast darkness over the minds of the people of these last days. Can we, dear brethren in Christ, look on with indifference, when God says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”? Hosea 4:6. Oh! let us arouse to a sense of our duty that we owe to God and our fellow-men. I realize that many of us feel that we are small, and incompetent to do anything for the cause of truth; but that is a deception of Satan. There are none but that God can use in some way for the advancement of his cause if their hearts are right in his sight. Then let us cast an eye inwardly, to our own hearts. It may be we will see plenty of room for a reform there. If so, let us remove our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.

We are living in very drowsy times, when the foolish virgins have all gone to sleep, and we need to watch and pray much, lest we, too, become sleepy. Let us keep our faith in lively exercise. The best way to do this is to go to work. Work for Jesus. Work for perishing souls around us. If we love our neighbors as well as ourselves, we will work for their salvation as well as our own. We can pray for them, lend them our papers and tracts, and, last, but not least, the Reformer. My prayer to God is that each individual member of his family on earth may co-operate with God’s family (the angels) in Heaven, in the great work of salvation. God help us to realize the sacredness and importance of the work.

As I read accounts of the rise and progress of the cause of truth, by our leaders, and of their present zeal and true Christian piety, it begets within me a desire to bear some humble part in this work. I feel that I have but the one talent, but I do not want to bury that, but improve upon it, and do what good I can, be that much or little.

Dear friends, I am determined, by the help of the Lord, to share an inheritance in the earth made new. May God grant that when our Saviour comes to save his remnant people, we may be found with our lamps trimmed and burning, ready to enter in to the marriage supper of the Lamb. CHARLES H. FOSTER.

Hannibal, Mo., Dec. 6, 1873.