How shall we escape ?

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 7, 1862

How shall we escape ?

“How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?”—Hebrews ii, 3.

God has provided a great and glorious salvation,—a salvation for sinners who are lost, ruined, and undone. This salvation is revealed in the everlasting gospel, and is to be received and enjoyed by simple faith. It is a salvation from sin, in its guilt, power, and consequences; a salvation from hell with all its horrors, and which is perfected in heaven amidst the glories of the beatified. It was devised by infinite wisdom in the covenant of peace; it was procured by the life, labors, and death of Jesus : and it is now offered to sinners without money and without price.

Whosoever will, may come and receive this glorious salvation. But many neglect it. They trifle with mercy, let the most glorious opportunity slip, and then in intense agony have to exclaim, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved."

To prevent this, the apostle proposes the question, “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?”

If we neglect to secure an interest in it now, how shall we escape the terrible storm of wrath that shall fall on the ungodly? or how shall we endure the punishment due to our transgressions ? A slighted Saviour, a neglected salvation, a lost heaven, will embitter beyond the powers of calculation the pains of hell. That we might have been saved, and would not,—that we were offered salvation, and refused it,—will fill us with the bitterest regrets and most tremendous agony. Oh! my soul, if found among those who neglect Jesus, slight the gospel invitation, and treat God with contempt, what wilt thou do? Art thou safe? Safe now, and safe for ever? Remember you can only perish by your own act and deed ; death is but the just wages of sin.

“Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the day that I shall deal with thee?”—Ezekiel xxii, 14.—Sel.