p. 118 | Confidence in God by A. S. Hutchins

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 29, 1874

Confidence in God.

By A. S. Hutchins

AN unshaken confidence in the protecting care and sustaining grace of God amidst life's toils and sorrows, with a firm assurance of his approving smiles in the Judgment of the great day, cannot be valued; “the gold and the crystal cannot equal it.”

This confidence is based, not upon a mere matter of feeling, or evidence of a presumptive character; it is founded upon cheerful obedience to the revealed will of God, and his precious promises to all those who do it. It lays hold of the Son of God as the great atoning sacrifice for man's redemption, “in whom we have boldness and access with confidence by faith in him.” “In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence; and his children shall have a place of refuge.”

The soul buoyed up by such a confidence as this will not shrink,

“Though pressed by many a foe.”

“Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.”

In this age of deception and false hopes, there are those whose precept and practice are strangely inharmonious with Bible truth, claiming to be led by the Spirit of God, and to be living under its sanctifying influence and power, so much as to be wholly consecrated to God.

These seem to regard not the fact that the Spirit and the word of God lead not in opposite directions.

Says Jesus, “True worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him.” Again, he prays, “Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth.” These, as do other scriptures, teach that truth is to be taken into account in true worship and in Bible sanctification. Those who claim to be enjoying the great blessing of sanctification, which is the privilege of the Christian to attain unto through a life of self-denial, obedience, and devotion, should often weigh it in the balances of the Bible, the unerring test, the sure rule of right.

To claim and publish for ourselves sanctification of heart and life, while our daily record reads otherwise, is as far from that consecration and sanctification enjoined by the word of inspiration as the blossom upon the fruit tree in spring is from the full-grown, ripe fruit of autumn. Such would do well to cast away their confidence in their devotion and acceptance of God, and seek him with the whole heart, learn the great lesson of submission to him, and obtain a confidence grounded upon the rock of truth.

A gentleman who once observed the Bible Sabbath as taught by the fourth commandment, but who for years since had openly violated it, says, “God blessed me before I kept the Sabbath, he blessed me while keeping it, and he blesses me now; he blesses me all the time. My soul is full of love.” Another who had lived in a state of sanctification beyond sin, more than a score of years, on having his attention called to the claims of the fourth commandment, remarked that he would not keep the seventh-day Sabbath if he knew the Lord required it, unless the legislative body of his State should pass an ordinance sanctioning its observance. Another comes forth with the boasted claim of being so thoroughly sanctified that he cannot sin when he tries to.

Now, we submit as “sin is the transgression of the law,” if, in open and deliberate violation of one of its precepts, one may arise to that state of favor and communion with God that he may enjoy the great blessing of an entire consecration and sanctification of all his mental and physical powers to the Lord, that it would be difficult to prove that another might not be sanctified while in violation of every precept of the decalogue.

This would sadly reverse the teachings of inspiration on this question. One might turn “away his ear from hearing the law,” and his prayer be acceptable instead of “abomination” (Prov. 28: 9); he might break the “whole law,” and be guilty in no point.

As we hasten on through the increasing perils and delusions of the last days, to the consummation of all earthly scenes, more and more marked will be the contrast between those who, enlightened by sparks of their own kindling, pass away to perdition, and those whose pathway is illuminated by rays of light emanating from the sacred volume of divine truth, inspiring hope, courage, and holy confidence in God, with every true believer, till under the approval of the Master the cross is exchanged for the crown, till a life of tears and toil shall give place to triumphant joy and endless bliss, in the presence of the blessed Saviour.

A. S. HUTCHINS.

Sept. 5, 1874.