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The Lord Told Me

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 26, 1864

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 23, No. 22.

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The Lord Told Me.

By A. J. Richmond

"The Lord told me that I could keep Sunday, and I shall do so till he tells me not to." Thus spoke a Methodist friend, after hearing lectures on present truth. Upon being asked what he thought of the Sabbath question, he said, "I have been stirred up on the Sabbath question before, and the Lord told me I could keep Sunday." He had become satisfied by conversing and reading upon the subject, that the Sabbath was binding, and ought to be kept. It seems the cross was so great he could not obey the truth, but must have something to quiet his conscience, therefore he got away in secret to call upon the Lord for help. Help to do what? Keep the Sabbath and obey the truth, which he acknowledged to be binding? No. But if it was not time for him to commence keeping the Sabbath, and if the Lord wanted him to go on keeping Sunday, to let him be blessed. The blessing came, he was confirmed in his error, rejected the truth, has since listened to a course of lectures, and while his neighbors and relatives have received the truth, and are rejoicing in the light, his heart has grown hard, and he now takes the position that the ten commandments are abolished.
This case reminded me of a brother that we heard one of the messengers speak of a few years since. He requested baptism, but was refused because of a certain habit indulged in, until he should reform. He went away to the Lord, and asked him to bless him in living alone, without uniting with the people of God. He got a blessing, was confirmed in his course, and went off deceived. And so Satan is deluding souls who are not willing to be purified by obeying the truth, but wish to climb up some other way. May the Lord deliver his honest children from the deceptions of the enemy.
"The Lord told me" that "this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil;" that "the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;" that "the Sabbath was made for man;" that "the Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath-day;" that "here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus;" that "blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city."
May the Lord help us all to do his will, that we may know of the doctrine, and at last be found inside of the holy city.
A. J. RICHMOND.