Needs Regulating by G. D. Ballou

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 26, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 45.

Needs Regulating.

By G. D. Ballou

Suppose you and I sat together just as the sun was sinking in the western horizon. You inquire the hour. Taking out my watch, I reply that "my watch says it is ten o'clock." Your quick response is, "Well, your watch needs regulating." And why do you say so? Because God's great time-keeper, the sun, plainly says that it cannot be far from five o'clock.

Often we hear people say, after the solemn conviction that they are not observing God's appointed rest-day has been forced upon their minds and hearts by the word of God, "Well, my conscience says the day I have always kept is just as good, and, besides, my feelings will not let me change. I am afraid I should not be happy if I should change, and do different from what my fathers have done and all my neighbors are doing." God's word says plainly that the seventh day is the Sabbath, but your feelings and conscience say that the first day is the Sabbath. God commands a special time for worship; your conscience says another day will do just as well.

Now, my friend, your conscience and feeling need regulating. The only true conscience regulator is the word of God. If you will conform your course of conduct to its teachings, your feelings and your conscience will soon become corrected, so that they will speak as loudly for God's truth as they now clamor against it.

Conscience and feeling are like a watch: they must be kept corrected by the Bible, or they will speak contrary to the truth, and greatly mislead us. Exercise of the will does much to correct our moral judgment. Men must make up their minds to obey God's will as revealed in his word, or their efforts to serve him will be very weak and childish.

Perhaps you have felt sorry that you ever heard the Bible truth on the Sabbath question. What would you think of a laborer, who, after returning from his dusty work and washing his face, should look into the glass, and, discovering a black spot that was not yet removed, should remark with gravity and earnestness that he was sorry that he looked into the glass?

That heart must be in a sad condition that is sorry when God sends additional light to correct our faults and make the pathway to the kingdom more plain. Were the apostles and Martin Luther and other reformers ever filled with such wicked regrets? You know they were not. No more will the true child of God indulge them in this generation. The heart that cherishes such feelings is not reconciled to God. It needs regulating by the pure principles of God's word and the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Charity, true love for God, "rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth." 1 Cor. 13:6.

G. D. BALLOU. Salmon River, N. Y.