Pressing Forward to the Heavenly Rest
E. M. Davis writes from Ionia, Mich. : "I rejoice in the Lord that he ever gave me a desire (for it is certainly the Spirit of the Lord that calls us to leave our evil ways) to give heed to the third angel's message, and see that I was treading under foot (though ignorantly) God's holy rest-day. My determination is now, by the grace of God, to take his word for the man of my counsel. Although I do not feel within me that peace and quietness of mind at all times that some seem to enjoy, and have many doubts that I shall not be permitted to enter into that rest prepared for the people of God, yet I am determined to press forward. The blessed hope is before us. The eternal weight of glory is yet to come. The resurrection of the just, when all shall receive their recompense and reward is yet future. I am thankful that probation has not yet closed; that Christ has not yet laid aside his priestly garments and taken up his kingly robes, but is yet an advocate with the Father." "Man loves to build castles in the air; he allows his imagination to take a wide scope; but after all it is a dream, it is all vanity. But in heaven there is something that is not vanity; here is something worth striving for; here is something that no mind in its most refined state of cultivation can ever have a true conception of. Shall we not then brethren and sisters strive to overcome. Let us all therefore with David desire that one thing of the Lord, and that seek after; to wit, to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our life. Ps. xxvii, 4. Let us hunger and thirst after righteousness. Matt. v, 6. Let us love God with all our hearts; and "this is the love of God that we keep his commandments [1 John v, 3]; and in so doing there is great reward. Ps. xix, 11. When I recount my unprofitableness in the present cause, I fear and tremble lest a promise being left me of entering into his rest I should seem to come short of it. Hebrews iv, 1. Brethren and sisters, how many of us professing this present truth shall be sealed and translated, or raised at the first resurrection, over the subjects of which "the second death hath no power." What an awful thought that any of us may come short of it, and be doomed to suffer the pangs and agonies of the seven last plagues, when the unmingled wrath of God shall be poured without mixture upon the ungodly. And this is not the end. After a lapse of 1000 years, another scene is brought to view, at the close of the great day of the Lord God Almighty, when while under the influence of the last great deception of the Devil, being gathered together, Gog and Magog in battle array encompassing the camp of the saints about and the beloved city, fire comes down from God out of heaven and devours them. This is the second death. This is 'indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish;' 'everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord,' &c. 'What manner of persons then ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.'"