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ARE WE AWAKE?

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 24, 1878

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 52, No. 17.

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ARE WE AWAKE?

By R. F. Cottrell

Those who believe and love the truth can but rejoice as they see the result of the “broader plans” for its dissemination among the peoples and nations of the earth. God’s providence is over his work; therefore the spread of the truth, as we now see it, is a demonstration of the truth of the message we bear as being sent of Heaven; and not only so, but that the work of the gospel will speedily be brought to a close.
But who realizes the importance of this time, in which the probation of our race is so soon to be closed forever? What manner of persons ought we to be, in all holy conversation and godliness! And how should we be stirred with a zeal to labor for the salvation of our fellow-men! But while the last message is doing its solemn and fearful work, the mass of the people, young and old, are becoming intoxicated, delirious, insane, in their pleasure-seeking, and the mass of professed Christians are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.
Shall we who know the truth be carried away with the same spirit? Shall the young among us be light and vain, like the world around them? Can those who have solemnly covenanted to give their lives to the service of God, forget their obligation and their vows, and give their influence with those who know not God and obey not the gospel? Can they be merry and dance on the edge of that precipice—that yawning gulf—which lies before the ungodly world? Forbid it, Heaven!
Said an apostle, “Young men exhort to be sober-minded.” Another, “The end of all things is at hand; be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer.” Sobriety is always suitable to the child of God; but how emphatically so as we approach the end of all things.
Now is the time to labor in the cause of God. Now is the time to exert ourselves to save men. Now is the time to give our means for the spread of the truth, and ourselves to the work. And for ourselves personally, now is the time to seek God in earnest and live lives of consecration to his service. Shall we be, can we be, indifferent? May God help us to arouse to a lively sense of the present truth and of our obligation to him and those for whom Christ died, and who are in imminent danger of perishing.
R. F. COTTRELL.