p. 22 | LOOKING BACK by Joseph Clarke

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 17, 1862

LOOKING BACK.

By Joseph Clarke

Lot's wife became a pillar of salt. Why? She looked back. The hosts of Israel fell in the wilderness. Why? They looked back wishfully for Egypt again.

But there are many kinds of looking back, some right, some wrong. Let us notice some of them.

1. When the individual pants for the occupations, pleasures, treasures, friends, &c., left behind; as was the case with the wife of Lot, it proves that the deliverance is not appreciated, nor valued, nor the deliverer loved, nor the danger realized. Such a case is desperate, and calls for God's immediate disapprobation.

2. When the individual rescued, looks back, and recoils with a shudder, at the thought of the danger he has escaped, thus enhancing the sense of gratitude he feels toward his deliverer; this is right.

3. A looking back, to discover past sins, and errors, into which he may have fallen, that he may repent, and ask God for Christ's sake to forgive them; this is right, when directed and influenced by the good Spirit; but sometimes, Satan takes hold of this business, in the garb of an angel of light, and urges to despair and remorse, or drives to fanaticism or madness. Let us beware of Satan's devices.

4. A kind of looking back, which presents old difficulties, animosities, mistakes, errors, old leaven of bitterness and envy, which has probably been on hand a long time, rankling and festering; such a looking back as this, is evidently wrong and dangerous.

Habits are stubborn things, but bad habits must be broken off, and this habit which many have of dwelling upon darkness, is weakening to themselves, and others.

Had Samson known and realized his danger, he would not have submitted to Satan's arts. But there are other and various modes of weakening ourselves, and our brethren, and of these this one stands pre-eminent; of dwelling upon the dark side of events, and the darkest side of the acts of the weak and the lukewarm. Such need more of our forbearance, more of our love, more of our charity and effort; and toward ourselves, God does not require us to condemn, with bitter, despairing, despondent feeling, but so to hate the sin, as he does; turn from it with broken contrite heart, looking to Jesus for pardon, until his love comes down into the soul, causing cheerfulness, and courage in God.

Look up to Jesus dear brother! Look away from this gloomy earth, and learn of him to love the weak, and bear them on your wings of faith, to where Jesus pleads. See what he can do for them.

It is an easy thing to love an angel of light. It is easy to admire the lovely ripe christian, whose very presence brings a purer holier atmosphere. But to love one of the least, the weakest of the flock; to nurse the diseased and sickly, to bind up the wounded; this requires patience and self denial. To help the angels drive away the evil spirits from the oppressed, half-despairing saint; to cherish him as the nurse does her charge, who in his delirium, becomes almost intolerable; this requires manly fortitude, and the God-like virtues, forgetting the present tribulation, merging all such considerations, in the prospect of a brighter crown, and a soul rescued by your instrumentality, from the horrible pit and the miry clay.

Forbear then to look back, in an evil manner. It is Satan's plan to weaken you, and destroy your usefulness, and weaken your brethren. JOSEPH CLARKE.