EZRA THE SCRIBE by Roswell Fenner Cottrell

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 30, 1881

EZRA THE SCRIBE.

By Roswell Fenner Cottrell

BY ELD. R. F. COTTRELL.

HE was a remarkable man. He had a peculiar trait, which was truly singular. "For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments." Ez. 7:10.

Few are the persons that seek the law of the Lord, in order that they may do and teach it. If men sought to know what God requires, they could find the way. But they seek to excuse themselves from doing what God commands, by willing ignorance of his law, or by persuading themselves that it has been abolished.

One pleads ignorance of its claims that he may be excused from doing it; another cannot plead ignorance, and therefore claims that it has been abolished, so that he need not do it; and some make both these pleas, so that if one fails to excuse them from doing the will of God, they can fall back on the other; if the law remains unabolished and unchanged, they still fail to understand its requirements.

It would be better, like Ezra, to seek the law of the Lord with a heart willing to do it. "Seek, and ye shall find." The will of God is plainly revealed. The absence of a heart of willing obedience is the great cause of ignorance and error.