FOUR OLD FRIENDS | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 1, 1877

FOUR OLD FRIENDS.

Readers, a word with you from four old friends—the Sabbath, the Sanctuary, the Scriptures, the Saviour.

“I am,” says the Sabbath, “nearly six thousand years old, the oldest of seven brothers, born in a quiet and happy time. When my eyes first opened I saw Eden in its primal beauty; there was no sin; my history began when God surveyed the new-formed world and pronounced it good, and as a gift of kindness he bestowed me as a boon to man, to whom he has made me a great blessing. I bring peace and rest and holy counsels to the sons of toil. I have been your family friend, bringing those together whom the week sundered, bringing them round the sacred altar in holy bands of union, amity, and love, to lead the mind from fading earthly things to those divine realities above the skies, to raise the nobler faculties to services celestial, and to give on earth the happy earnest of that endless rest laid up in Heaven; and thousands, as they gather together in my sacred hours, become illumined with the rays of gospel glory; souls receive the precious seeds of eternal life; heavy hearts are lightened of grievous burdens; many eat of heavenly manna and drink of water from the anointed Rock; in a word, in my well-ordered hours many blessings from on high descend, until the earthly courts of God are filled with radiant beams of heavenly glory. I am thy country’s friend and thine.”

The sanctuary says, “I am nearly as old as the Sabbath; at first I was only a bower in Eden, associated with recollections of ancient glory. I afterward floated with Noah in the ark; and to the patriarch with his stone pillow, his earthen bed, his cloud-formed drapery, his bespangled roof of glittering stars, and, withal, the mystic ladder, the traversing angels, and the likeness of Jehovah, I was at the gate of Heaven. I traveled through the wilderness with Moses; then as the magnificent temple at Jerusalem, with God for my architect and artificer, and now no longer circumscribed by the boundaries of Palestine. Where God is recognized, adored, and worshiped, with the exalted band, with the covenanted host, on the moorland, in the secluded ravine or sheltered dell, I am there; with the little company who meet around the cabin or on deck of the vessel floating on the mighty waters, or with the rustic company of the village in the well-swept barn, I am there; or in the room of the pious, where friends and neighbors meet to praise and pray, or in the cathedral, church, or chapel, where heart and flesh do thirst after God, I am there. Wherever God’s name is recorded, wherever God’s glory is designed, wherever God’s ordinances are celebrated, I am there, gathering households under my shadow, aiding them in worship, and praise, and prayer. I have seen sinners changed into saints, and habits formed, hopes imparted, desires elicited, the heart enriched, and God glorified. My meanest seat is higher than an earthly throne, and the lowest only less dignified than the stations of the beautified in Heaven. I am thy country’s friend and thine.”

The Scriptures declare, “I, too, am very old. First, in my infancy, I was only a simple promise. It was my work to teach men to be happy in this world, and show them how to be fitted for the world to come. I have studied languages in my time, and can now talk about Heaven in many dialects. There is hardly any land into which I have not traveled. I have many times whispered a pleasant word to your parents in their sicknesses and sorrows. I have cheered them through many a difficulty. I have pleasant truth for all ages, and classes, and conditions of mankind, teaching them what to know, to do, and to enjoy. I, also, am thy country’s friend and thine.”

The Saviour says, “I am the oldest of all the four. In the beginning I was with God, as the Word, speaking worlds into being and establishing all things. During many ages, I paid many visits in various forms to the children of men. At last I came and dwelt in the world for thirty-three years. I lived to teach and to bless, illuminating the sightless eye-balls, opening the ears of the deaf, loosening the tongues of the dumb, cleansing the impure and raising the dead, quelling the tumult of the winds, quieting the waves of the sea, conversing with angels, and I died to save sinners. But I rose from the dead, and am now alive forevermore. I have issued the commission of mercy to the world, and commanded the utterance of Heaven’s amnesty, through my death, to every creature. I am your best friend. It is I who make the Sabbath, the Sanctuary, and the Scriptures your friends.”

There are not many Sabbaths within the short time of man’s probation—none to be wasted, trifled with, or spent in sin and folly. Seek in the sanctuary the Holy Spirit of thy Lord, and then the blessings and promises of the Scriptures will make thee meet for the endless rest. Let thy cheerfulness be that which wisdom doth confer, and thy joy be that of those who know their God, and are with hopeful expectation looking for and hastening to the final day of Christ the Saviour.—Church Union.