“I DO THE BEST I KNOW HOW.”
By James Sawyer
A TEXT USED IN THE LAST DAYS.
DEAR reader, will you pause long enough to consider whether you are governed by the above text or not? Please lay down this paper and answer the question before you proceed any farther. If this should be the highest standard of your religion, may you not be deceived? May not your house fall when the storms beat upon it? May you not be on the broad road to destruction? In justification of the text-principle one says, I am an erring, sinful creature, doing every day something displeasing to God: the best, however, have their faults; David had his, Solomon had his, and others theirs. I do not know but that God winks at, or overlooks my sins of ignorance. Acts xvii, 30. My secret faults are many. I think of many things on the Sabbath-day which interrupt the worship of God. Sometimes my heart-wanderings lead me to be wavering and doubtful, and I am afraid to bear testimony to the truth. Sometimes I think it hard that I am not prospered in this world's goods like some of my neighbors, when it seems as though I tried as much as they do, to get along—and they seem to have an easy road, and I a rough one; they seem to go down the hill, and I up the hill. My feelings are sometimes liberal towards the support of the gospel, and I would like to give more than I do, but my wages are so small, how can I do any more than support my family? Such and other kindred thoughts are filling up his mind, and he calls them secret faults, and lets them pass with the innumerable number of sins of ignorance which the Lord overlooks, winks at, or does not make any account of. But what says the word? Ps. xix, 12. Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Ps. xc, 8. Thou hast set our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. Matt. vi, 6. Pray to thy Father which seeth in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret will reward thee openly. But is a sin of ignorance a trespass or a transgression? Read Lev. v. 17–19. Will a just God look upon sin with allowance? How can we be probationers and not desire correction? Dare we conjecture that God is shutting his eyes and making allowance for our faults because we have excuses? Is he not rather turning his eyes from us because our ways are abhorrent? Rev. xiv, 5. “In their mouth was found no guile, for they are without fault before the throne of God.” Shall we not then say with the Psalmist, “Lord, cleanse thou me from secret faults?” Will not such cleansing be necessary to fit for translation? “I do the best I know how.” Will not this let us climb up some other way, and get the heathen on the ladder going right into heaven? Much teaching of the present day is consonant with this, although a mockery to the efforts which have already been made in the missionary cause. Such walls are being built. Will you dare trust to them? Lift up your heads and see if they will secure us. Are they safe? You have lifted up your heads, what do you see? Mortar and brick, you say. Will you examine the mortar and see if it be tempered? It is untempered mortar you say. Flee then! O flee quickly [Eze. xiii]! for the wall is daubed, and the great hailstones and a stormy wind will rend it, and you will be consumed in the midst thereof unless “ye go up into the gaps and help make up the hedge for the house of Israel, to stand in the day of the Lord.” Eze. xiii. To the testimony. Ps. ix, 17. The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. Ps. xciv, 10. He that chastiseth the heathen shall not he correct? Ps. ix, 15. The heathen are sunk down in a pit that they made. If then the heathen be such as forget God, how can they be saved? For they who forget God are like the rush and the flag without water to nourish. Job viii, 12–14. Their hope shall be cut off—their trust, a spider's web. They who forget God will be reproved, will be torn in pieces, and none shall deliver them unless they consider the reproof. Ps. l, 21, 22. How then will our ignorance, our forgetfulness, or our lack of knowledge excuse us? Can we take hold of the promises of God without asking for them? Can we enter the door of heaven and intrude ourselves abruptly into the presence of holy beings, without asking admission, and then say we forgot to knock at the door, or did not know it was required of us, but thought we could come right in, of ourselves? I did the best I know how, Lord, I even “prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out devils,” will not answer. It was your privilege to have done better than you did. Why did you not seek me with all your heart? And you have robbed me. Wherein, Lord? In tithes and offerings. Because ye could not sing like the Psalmist, ye would not praise me at all. Because ye had not my cattle upon a thousand hills, ye gave me no offering, not even two turtle doves, or two pigeons [Lev. v, 7], and when ye did bring a lamb it was either lame or blind. Your principle of action should have been, I will do the best I can know how. Jesus who was to be with such people to the end of the world, was the one to whom you should have daily gone. He was the one who would have given you wisdom if ye had asked. Jas. i, 5. To the testimony. Hosea iv, 6. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” Ignorance, or lack of knowledge will not excuse us then, forgetfulness will not screen us, but unless we become wise unto salvation, with the daring ungodly shall we share the unmixed wrath of the Lord, when he taketh up the controversy in the land and it mourneth, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, and the beasts are taken away. Hosea. iv, 1–3.
JAMES SAWYER.