YOU ARE LOSING TIME by Raymond F. Cottrell

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 3, 1880

YOU ARE LOSING TIME.

By Raymond F. Cottrell

CONVICTED of truth and duty, and postponing obedience, you are losing time; and as time, or the use we make of it, is the price of eternity, you are, in the course you are pursuing, losing eternity.

You are waiting for more certain evidence on some points. You can see many parts of the present truth and you can also see a beautiful harmony in the whole; but because you do not see more convincing evidence on every point, you neglect to obey what you do see.

The truth is clear and right. The evidences are sufficient. The difficulty is in the deceitful heart. You love the world, its riches, its honors. "How can ye believe, which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor which cometh from God only?" This is what feeds and strengthens the "evil heart of unbelief," and prevents one from exercising the faith that is able to save the soul.

While you occupy this doubting and delaying ground you are losing time; and if this course is persisted in, you lose eternal life. The prospect of the final, dreadful loss is right before you in the way that you are going. Nothing is more certain than this direful result. Unbelief and sin surely lead to ruin.

You are losing time. You should be letting the light shine. You should be laboring to save others as well as yourself. You might be doing good, and making it possible for the Master finally to say to you, Well done. But you are squandering the precious time which God is giving you in which to labor; thus constantly making it more probable that you will lose yourself. You cannot afford, did you know it, to lose the world to come, because your faith is not strong enough to let go of this.

Be entreated to change your course. Cherish faith. Give your doubts to the winds. The Lord will take care of his own cause and perfect his own work. It is because God has set his hand to restore the truth to his people, and thus prepare them for translation, that you have the truth which you have, and which you are delaying to obey. Acknowledge what he has done for you, and he will do more. Walk in the light, and light will increase. Exercise the little faith you have, making it perfect by corresponding works, and your faith will increase. Give up the present world, and your hold on the future world will strengthen, and your prospect of obtaining it brighten.

Do not, I beseech you, longer waste your precious time. It will soon, very soon, all be gone. Take your position without delay while it is called to-day. It is high time to awake out of sleep. Let unbelief bind you no longer. Break the bands before they are made stronger. Arouse to duty, and work while the day lasts. God is calling you to let your light shine. Satan is urging you still to cover it up with the unbelief which you have so long fostered. Break away. Redeem the time while a little is left in which you may secure eternal life. Do not waste more of this precious commodity, and so mourn at the last that the harvest is past and the summer ended, and the priceless gift of eternal life lost. Yes, lost! forever lost!!

R. F. COTTRELL.