DISPUTATIONS by A. H. Darrow

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Oct 18, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 42.

DISPUTATIONS.

By A. H. Darrow

BY A. H. DARROW.

"WHERE is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" 1 Cor. 1:20. "Do all things without murmurings and disputings." Phil. 2:14. "Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, from such withdraw thyself." 1 Tim. 6:5.

Not very long ago, I received from the editor of a First-day Adventist newspaper a pamphlet written against the Sabbath. After perusing it, I wrote him that I had read about all there was to read on that side, and found nothing new and little that was true in them. I then said: "You can not drag down that one only Sabbath of Jehovah (Christ) without dragging the Bible down with it."

His reply was printed as an editorial of about two columns in his paper; and twice he gave utterance to substantially the following exclamation: "Drag the Bible down, if it does not teach the Saturday Sabbath! Could inconsistency and perversity go farther than this?"

And yet, there was not a word in my remarks, written or printed, which justified such a statement, nor could any such meaning be drawn from my words as he printed them. Any one could see that I expressed no intention to drag the Bible down under any circumstances, and counselled no one else to do so.

There is probably not a more humble, sincere Christian, nor a more candid, fair-minded man to be found in the ranks of those who oppose the Sabbath of the Bible, than this same editor. How, then, shall we account for this manifest unfairness?—Answer: Simply by attributing it to an intemperate zeal in controversy, an excessive fondness for disputation.

Let us be careful that we do not carry this disputatious spirit into our church assemblies and Sabbath-schools. Ministers, elders, Sabbath-school superintendents, and teachers, being elected according to God's order by the votes of the members of Christ's body, hold their positions by virtue of a divine appointment, are divinely-constituted leaders and guides, and should not be subject to unreasoning contradiction, merely to gratify our ignorant self-conceit. We should remember that "God is not the author of confusion, but of peace," and that an adversary to God's order is a servant of Satan. It is the spirit of Satan, not of God, which foments disputations and arrays adversaries against the work of God.

In a letter received from an elder and president of a conference, I find the following language: "Do you train with the ungodly set that Mrs. White is leading around? Better get your eyes open. I am fighting the devilish delusion, you bet."

How much better it would be if he and all others were fighting the good fight of faith, keeping the commandments of God and the faithful testimonies of Jesus Christ, instead of nurturing a spirit of discord and enmity. If they could only see the brink of the pit on which they stand when they rashly assert that the weekly Sabbath did not come once a week, that the first of the Sabbaths was instituted at the close of the last of the Sabbaths, and that "the spirit of prophecy" means a record of prophecy,—what an awful predicament might these dear brethren escape! and what joy in the Holy Ghost might be theirs on the Lord's Day! Let us pray that the Spirit of Truth may so lead them.