Think Soberly | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · Jul 15, 1875

Think Soberly.

If a man think himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself; and in deceiving himself he may often most disastrously deceive others. For many have confidence in a man in proportion to his assurance, his self-confidence, or his position, without regard to his real character. If a man seems sincere they confide in him, forgetting that no men appear more sincere than those who have deceived themselves, and who now of necessity, and with apparent sincerity, deceive others.

It is a sad thing for an honest, well-meaning man to spend years of his life in earnest, zealous effort in a given direction and then awake to the horrible thought that throughout the whole he has been doing a deceiver's work, turning men from the right way, dividing, alienating, and destroying; — and all upon a basis of error, which is not of God for "no lie is of him."

To a conscientious mind it must be most distressing to reflect: "The course I have taken is wrong; the doctrines I have preached are proved false; the leaders I have followed

have gone astray and fallen into the ditch; the measures I have supported have proved disastrous; the men whom I have denounced have been in the right; the doctrines I have fought against still stand, but my followers and associates, whose faith I have undermined, and whose minds I have embittered against everything else, having been misled by me are like sheep without a shepherd, and I am powerless to remedy the ruin I have wrought."

Such might be the reflections of men who have pressed forward to positions of leadership for which they were unfit, who have aspired to teach, when they hardly knew enough to learn, and who have been looked up to as oracles, when in fact they are only blind leaders of the blind.

Unfortunately many of these thoughts will never enter into the minds of those who have been self-deceived. Ignorant, conceited, and self-sufficient, they know little of humility, of confession, of forsaking every wrong way. What they do is invested with a halo of self-confidence. Their very errors are better than ordinary truths. Their follies are marks of divine wisdom. Their wrongs are better than common people's rights. And so whatever position they may have taken, they never recede, never rectify, never confess, but push headlong on, until they plunge into the depths of ruin at the end.

The lesson from all this is, "Think soberly." He who honestly reviews his errors, his faults, his follies, and his sins, cannot think highly of himself, but will rather be clothed with humility. He who has any knowledge of the wisdom and holiness of God, will abhor himself, and repent in dust and ashes. Such a man will not come to the Lord's table and choose for himself the chiefest seat: he will not boast of his wisdom, his holiness, his faith, or his works. He will sit down in the lowest place, conscious of his own infirmity and unworthiness, and nothing but the persuading and commanding voice of Him that bade him shall call him to a higher place.

Let us learn this lesson of humility, for he that exalteth himself shall be abased, while he that humbleth himself shall be exalted; and all be subject one to another, for God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble. — Sel.