An Appeal to the Unconverted and Backsliders by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 31, 1876

An Appeal to the Unconverted and Backsliders.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

BY ELD. D. M. CANRIGHT.

(Concluded.)

TEXT: “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” 2 Cor. 6: 2.

If ever you are saved you will have to make an earnest effort. But when we appeal to you, you probably feel as though you cannot start now; you cannot break away and become a Christian. My friend, you will either have to do it sometime or be lost. Have you deliberately made up your mind to be lost? Do you really mean to lose Heaven? Of course you do not. You think that some time you will do differently. But what time have you set? What circumstances will make it easier for you than now? What means do you expect will be brought to bear upon you that have not been used already? You are waiting to have the way made easier? But do you not know that this is vain? You may wait a year, and you will meet the same obstacles as now. If God should spare your life ten years, you would find it just as hard then as now. The difficulties, instead of growing less, will multiply and grow larger. If ever you become a Christian, you will find that it is through a mighty effort, a terrible struggle. Victory is not won by doing nothing.

That which is worth anything always costs something. The more it is worth the more it costs. Is this not so in everything in this world? Then, as the favor of God and eternal life are worth more than all other treasure, my dear sir, if you ever gain them you will find that it will cost you the greatest effort you ever made. But that effort must be made or you are a lost man. It will not help you to put it off. You may as well settle that question with your own soul now as ever. Do you mean to make that effort, or will you give up like a coward and lose immortality without a struggle?

The longer you wait the harder it will become, and the greater effort you will have to make. The young man thinks the cross will be lighter and the task easier when he is quietly settled down in life. But when that time comes he finds his difficulties only increased. He has a wife and children, business relations, and other things have risen up between him and God, and have crowded him farther from Heaven. He now imagines it will be easier when his children have grown up around him, and the hurry of business is over. But when that opportunity arrives, he finds around him ungodly, irreligious children, who stand square across his path. He finds his habits fixed and settled, and hard to change. He makes one more promise that when he becomes an old man, with the battle of life in the past, and his hairs whitening for the grave, then he will give his heart to God. But oh! how selfish and wicked is the thought. He will serve himself and the devil all the active part of life, and then turn himself over to the Lord when he can do nothing else. If God were not infinitely merciful he never would accept such an offering.

But when that last promised time has come, he finds that he has chosen the hardest season of all. He now finds it almost an utter impossibility to break away, to break up all his old habits, change the whole current of his life, and learn to love that which he has neglected and hated all his life. Very few men do it. My observation is that the great mass who ever become Christians, become such under the age of twenty-five. I have seen scores of old men between the ages of sixty and seventy, who would sit and weep under the preaching of the gospel, who believed the word of God, and who had meant to be Christians sometime; but now when the last chance had come, they could not, or would not, at any rate they did not, make the start which all through life they had vainly supposed would be so easy then.

God calls upon you to choose. Thus he says, “I call Heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.” Deut. 30: 19. What a solemn appeal this is! Heaven and earth are called as witnesses that life and death are set before us, and that we have a chance to choose. Again we read, “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” Josh. 24: 15. We are not mere machines. God has given us freedom of choice, and then has set right and wrong, life and death, before us. God will never compel you to take the right. You must do it of your own free choice. No one will be forced into Heaven. No one will be compelled to go to hell. Every one is left deliberately to choose which he will have. Having settled this by his own choice, God is just in giving it to him.

To the youth the Lord bears this solemn testimony: “Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.” Eccl. 11: 9. That is, you can go on while you are young, enjoy yourself, take your cheer, walk after the desire of your heart, indulge in sin, sow your wild oats, gratify your passions, strengthen your evil habits, and put God, Heaven, and eternity out of your minds; you can do all this; God will let you; you can do it for years, he will not stop you. But, says the great God, remember, bear it in mind, keep it before you all the time, that for all these things God will certainly bring you into judgment. Reader, you are making your choice, you are settling your case, every day is deciding it. Every year you live without God you are saying that you do not love his ways, that you choose to go to perdition rather than to enter his service, and this choice is being recorded in Heaven and will all be laid open at the Judgment. Are you willing that your case should continue to stand thus? You may now feel indifferent about it; but the day will come, when it is too late, that you will not feel so.

What you need, my brother, is to break that stubborn will of yours. Jesus says, “Ye will not come to me that ye might have life.” It is your will that stands in the way. You will to serve the devil; you do not will to serve God. Again Jesus says, “And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. . . . And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Rev. 22: 17. Here is the same thought again, “Whosoever will let him come.” The will must decide. That is the very thing that stands in your way. We ask you to commence to pray, but you will not. We ask you to do other duties, but you will not. This is the great lesson for the sinner to learn—his will must be given up. God’s will must be complied with. Jesus says of himself, “I came down from Heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me.” This must be the spirit that rules in your heart before you can take the first step toward Heaven. Do not let your will rule you, but rule your will. Commence now; begin to-day; say I will. Do not wait for some special revival; do not wait for somebody to carry you. Go out alone, get down upon your knees; cry to God for help; say I will, and repeat it till you bring yourself to it. This is all that stands in your way, and you can do this if you will.

Only one step at a time. Take one step, that will open the way for you to take another; it will give you strength to take another. You do not know what you can do till you try. You do not know how much God will help you. Begin somewhere; take hold of the first thing that comes up. Go out and pray alone; this is a good way to begin. Arise in meeting and confess the Lord, and ask God’s people to pray for you. Open your mind to some Christian friend. Commence to read the Bible regularly. Do something; commence somewhere to-day, now; do not wait. You will find it hard work to begin; and why? Because it will be entirely new business to you,—something you have never practiced. You must learn to be a Christian, just as you would learn any thing else. It can only be done by practice. If a man would be a carpenter he must begin with the simplest work, and have long months of practice before he can do a good job. What work would a man make blacksmithing who had never tried it at all? The lawyer has to learn to speak and make his pleas; the minister has to learn to preach,—and, my brother, you will have to learn to pray, to have faith in God, to speak in public, to praise God, &c.

Indeed, everything in the Christian life has to be learned the same as in anything else. It does not come naturally; the natural heart is directly opposed to it. Religion is not something to be put on like a garment, ready made. It must be learned; it must grow in a man. However wise you are, and however strong you are in other directions, you will be as weak as a newborn babe in your first efforts to be a Christian. You must not expect to commence with the full strength of an old, matured Christian. But the longer you put it off, the weaker and more helpless you are becoming. Again I repeat, Commence somewhere; take the first step, and do it now.

“I do not want to start till I am sure I shall hold out.” Yes, how many thus say, and what a foolish saying it is! What a cunning scare of the devil! My friend, you ought to be ashamed to ever say such a thing as that. If you would use a little common sense, as you do in other things, you would never say it again. Stop and consider a moment. Is anybody ever sure that he will hold out when he starts? No; even the apostle Paul, after he had preached till he was an old man, said that even then though he had preached to others he feared that he should be a castaway. No man is certain that he will hold out till he is safe in the kingdom. But that will be just one day too late. Friend, if you wait till you are sure you will hold out, you will never start at all. You must make an effort; you must struggle all the way. It will be a continual fight, a constant battle. You do not reason this way about anything else. What would we think of a farmer who would refuse to sow his wheat till he was sure he would get a crop? What would we think of the traveler who would refuse to start for home till he was sure he would get there? What would we think of the student who would refuse to commence any study till he was sure he would master it? Such reasoning is folly. There is not a particle of excuse for it. You ought to be ashamed to use it. But if such an argument is good for anything, it will be just as good a year from now, or five or ten years hence; it will be just as good till you draw your last breath, till your probation is closed, and then there is no chance at all. Foolish man! do not indulge in such vain excuses any longer. Up, and at work; make a trial. Perhaps you say, I have tried and have backslidden one or more times, and I am afraid to try again. No doubt—but, dear friend, suppose you do not try again; then what? Then you will surely perish. You will do no worse than thousands if you try and fail again. If you do not try you know that you are a lost man; perdition is your portion. If you do try you may succeed this time. The old motto which we used to read in school should be the motto of every soul, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again;” and if you fail a thousand times, try again every time.

This is the way men have to do who succeed in worldly affairs. Ask that great blacksmith if he never made blunders and mistakes in learning his trade. Ask the carpenter, ask the lawyer, ask even the farmer. Does he always make a success of everything? Do his crops never fail? Can he always carry out his plans? No, not half the time. Yet he keeps trying, trying, trying. Every time he fails he tries a little harder. Can we not use as much wisdom and perseverance in securing Heaven as in gaining the perishable things of earth? We must do it or be damned.

How much the Lord has said on this very point to encourage us to keep trying. You remember that when Peter asked if he should forgive his brother seven times, Jesus said, “I say not unto you, Until seven times; but, until seventy times seven”—if he turn and repent as many times. Will not the Lord himself do what he advises others to do? For what was the parable of the prodigal son given? Was it not to encourage backsliders to try again? What does the parable of the lost sheep mean? You say you cannot be a Christian. This is utterly false, and you know it. You can be if you only will; but you must make an effort, and keep struggling, and never give up.

You are standing in the way of others. It is very often the case that one person stands across the track of others and holds them back. If he would take hold and do his duty, it would open the way for others to start. I have frequently seen one stubborn person stand in the way of half a dozen. If he would enter upon the service of God, others would. They are looking to him to start; they are waiting for him to move. My brother, this may be just your case, so that while you are doing nothing you are really throwing your whole influence against the cause of Christ and the salvation of your friends. Though God should spare your life till some time in the future, and you should repent and become a Christian yourself, yet, by that time those whom you might have influenced for good then, may be beyond your reach, and be finally lost in consequence of the wrong course you took. Every one has his influence, you have yours. Christ truly said, “He that gathereth not with me scattereth

abroad.” If, then, you are not actually gathering with Christ, your influence is given to oppose, retard, and hinder the work of Christ. No amount of repentance will undo this in the future. My friend, your life is too short to be thrown away in such a useless and wicked manner.

Perhaps you are a parent and have children growing up around you. What are you doing to teach them the way of the Lord? Nothing at all. You do not obey God yourself, and if father or mother can live without religion, why should not they? They grow up without prayer, without devotion, without the fear of God. This is the way you are bringing them up. In future years, if you should repent and turn to God, they will be beyond your reach. How, then, can you account to the Master for their souls? How will you feel when you see them lost through your influence? These are solemn thoughts. They ought to have weight with you. You know they are true, and you will not deny it. Why do you not awake, then, and bestir yourself? Commence now. “Behold, now is the day of salvation.”

God will hold you responsible for the great privileges you have. Let us look at them a moment. You have been brought up in a Christian land. You have had a chance from your earliest infancy to become acquainted with the Bible, with the true God, and the dear Saviour. This is a privilege which millions of our race have never had. They have had their birth in heathen lands, and have been taught to worship false gods. They have never heard anything about the true God. Your case, then, in the Judgment will be much worse than theirs; for you reject light which they never had. Again, you have had your lot in this land of liberty. You have the utmost freedom to obey God in every requirement if you choose. No one would whip you for it, stone you, imprison you, or take your life. You can have no excuse in this direction; but millions of others, in other ages, have had to suffer all these things and much more in order to obey God. They have been persecuted, whipped, imprisoned; they have lost all their earthly goods, and finally have had to lay down their lives for obeying him.

You have none of these things in your way, and yet you do not care enough about his will to obey him under these favorable circumstances. How can you answer for this in the Judgment? You must have a very strong love for sin, and very little taste for the service of God, or you would do differently. From your earliest infancy you have been where you could hear the word of God preached almost any day. You have been surrounded with churches, with ministers, and with pious people, all of them ready to instruct you, to help you, and to lead you. Yet you have profited by none of these things, you have despised them all, and gone on, growing harder and harder in sin. Probably you have had praying parents, and thousands of prayers have been offered for you; they have admonished you, intreated you, plead with you, but you have hardened your heart against it all. Every possible effort has been made to lead you to Christ, and yet, you are unsaved. The great God is willing to save you, but you are not willing to be saved. Jesus is anxious to pardon you, but you do not care to be pardoned. Angels watch to help you, but you feel no need of their help. God’s people plead with you, but you feel no need of pleading for yourself.

My dear friend, I must close my appeal to you, but remember this: The day is coming when all these things will rise up and meet you in the Judgment. The greater the light and privileges which you have, the greater will be your condemnation at last. I hope that you will be persuaded by these words to turn to God and seek the salvation of your soul. “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

Rome, N. Y., Aug. 5.