As a Shining Light by Daniel Nettleton

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, Cal. · Feb 7, 1911

"As a Shining Light"

By Daniel Nettleton

Personal Experience in Accepting Present Truth

"THOU shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee," says Moses; and Paul exhorts us to "call to remembrance the former days." The Lord said He had somewhat against the church of Ephesus, because they had left their first love. A good way to keep from losing our first love for this message and work, is to review frequently the steps we took in coming into the truth, and then to "remember all the way" in which the Lord has led us.

I accepted present truth in 1875, entered the ministry in 1877, and have been in the work ever since. God called me to do the work of an evangelist,—to preach the Word,—and I have endeavored to be about my "Father's business." "As we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the Gospel, even so we speak."

The Sabbath truth came to me while I was yet at home, working on father's farm in Nebraska. A Seventh-day Adventist home missionary worker sent father the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald.

I also read the SIGNS OF THE TIMES. This last named paper was but two years old at that time, but it was old enough to preach the Word of the Lord. Perhaps not as plainly as in this "Special Present Truth Series;" for the truth, like "the path of the just," "is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." But it helped me to accept God's message for this time, for which I praise the Lord.

Being strict Methodists, and being warned not to read those "Advent papers," mother pasted them on the wall to keep out the wind and cold. Well, they did help keep the cold out, and they brought the truth in, though we did not invite it to come. Though they came uninvited, the papers were a great blessing. "Some have entertained angels unawares." Pasted in a conspicuous place near the wood-box were those papers, with the title-page plainly to be seen. When I brought in the wood, I would stop and read the SIGNS OF THE TIMES. In one paper I read the text, "Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."

When I went out to work, I would say to myself, "Do not we Methodists keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus?" I had learned the Ten Commandments at Sunday-school, and I knew the fourth one said, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. . . . The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." I knew the calendar put Sunday as the first day of the week, and Mark said, "When the Sabbath was past, . . . very early in the morning the first day of the week," and Matthew said, "In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week."

Our Methodist minister said, "We keep the first day of the week to commemorate the resurrection of our Saviour," but I had not read that in the Bible. I did read, however, "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law;" and I knew the law to say, "The seventh day is the Sabbath." In the epistle of James I read, "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all;" and in 1 John 3:4, "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law."

I was made a little uneasy by these scriptures, so I began to study and think about this matter. Some said we could not tell which day is the Sabbath. But I read in my Bible (Luke 23:54-56) that the day on which Jesus was crucified "was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew on. . . . And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment." Then "upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher." So I knew that the day just before the first day of the week was the Sabbath day, according to the commandment.

Another incident also helped to make this truth plain. One morning after family worship (my father always had family prayer, morning and evening, and it was this that led me to give my heart to God) my brother said to me: "You are not keeping the true Sabbath day. The seventh day is the Sabbath, and our family Bible says Saturday is the seventh day, or Sabbath." I went to the family Bible, and found the table of the days of the week to which he referred, and sure enough, it said, "The first day of the week, Sunday; the second day, Monday; . . . the seventh day, or Sabbath, Saturday." It was made so plain that Saturday is the true Sabbath day that I could not deny it and be a Christian. God fixed that truth so firmly in my mind that it has not yet been removed.

Divine truth took hold of me, and claimed me as its own. I praise the Lord that I am still His, and by His grace have been able to call hundreds to the same truth, who have been led to keep "the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."

I am so glad now that my father was poor, and we did not live in a fine, comfortable house; for if we had, those papers might never have been pasted on the wall, and I might never have read them, and been led to the present truth. I am also thankful that God put it into some one's heart to send us the Review and the SIGNS OF THE TIMES. God knows who it was, and I expect to know in the new earth. O brethren! let us continue to send our good papers to our friends. "Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters." "In due season we shall reap, if we faint not." As I continued to read the SIGNS OF THE TIMES and the Review, and study the Bible, there came into my heart a strong desire to be a Sabbath-keeper. I would go out into the grove on father's old homestead, and pray that God would open the way so I could be baptized and keep His Sabbath. After much careful study and earnest prayer, I fully decided to keep the Sabbath, and gave up the world and all it promised me. I was just entering manhood, and, like young men in general, planned great things for the future; but I had learned to lay all my plans at the feet of Jesus, to be given up or carried out at His pleasure.

I had left the dear old farm and father's home, and was then working in a general store. There was but one family of Sabbath-keepers in town; in fact, there were very few in the State at that time, 1875, and I kept my first Sabbath with this family. They were very happy, and so was I. It was a stormy day, but there was "sunshine in my soul." I have had many good Sabbath days since, with hundreds of our people at camp-meetings and conferences; but that Sabbath, passed with that faithful family, was one of the happiest of my life.

"The church of the living God is the pillar and stay of the truth." The family is the unit of the church, and the church is the light of the world. "God setteth the solitary in families." O, the good that one true Seventh-day Adventist family can do in any community! The homes of our people are the missionary centers of this message. The fire kindled on Abraham's family altar is still a light in the world, in one way fulfilling the promise, "In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." The light of our sanitariums, publishing houses, and colleges would soon go out if the light shining from our family altars was extinguished.

When I began to keep the Sabbath, I wanted to be baptized and unite with the church. I had to wait, however, until a minister came. There were not so many Seventh-day Adventist ministers then as now; but they were earnest men, and about their Father's business. Finally Elder C. L. Boyd visited us, and we esteemed it a great privilege to entertain one of God's ministers. I shall never forget his earnest prayers and words of instruction. He not only expounded to me the way of God more perfectly, but helped me to find a place in the work of God. It was a happy day for me when he led me down into the water, and I was buried with my Lord in baptism, rising to walk in newness of life. O, how beautiful and glorious was this new-found truth to me! I wanted all the world to know it. As I saw a lost world rapidly approaching the great day of the Lord, souls unsaved and without hope in God, and as the calls came from different places for ministers and workers, I said, "O Lord, send me."

He did send me, and He has given me many souls as the seal of my ministry. Some of these are now ministers and workers in the message. I have baptized many believers; but I believe the happiest day of my life was when, for the first time, I baptized one who had been converted and accepted the present truth under my ministry. There is no joy this side of heaven like the joy of one who sees a soul for whom he has prayed and labored accept Christ and His truth. Many years have passed since then, and I, with my brethren in the ministry, have many times experienced this joy. We love to think and speak of these experiences, especially as we near the eventide of life. God has promised that "he that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." I have spent nearly all my life in new fields; and notwithstanding all the "light afflictions" incident to the life of a pioneer Seventh-day Adventist evangelist, I would not go back and choose another occupation if I could; I hope to finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus.

DANIEL NETTLETON.