p. 139 | Untitled article by P. C. RODMAN

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 27, 1864

My Experience. No. 2.

By P. C. RODMAN

I SUGGESTED to one brother, my being most persuaded to keep the seventh day as God commanded, calling it the Sabbath. Said he, "I am afraid of you." Why should he be? He was not, when I kept only nine of the commandments. Surely to obey all that is just and good, cannot make a man bad.

Another says, I have no objection to one's keeping the Sabbath, think it would be a benefit to me, and many others that work themselves most to death; yet that very brother only waited until a faithful advocate for the only day God ever blessed, was out of the place, and he commenced to persuade men not to keep it, by endeavoring to prove the law abolished by Christ, when Christ says plainly that he came to do no such thing. Matt. v, 17. Who is wrong? To the law and the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. Isa. viii, 20.

But after hearing Eld. Cornell in Rocky Brook and on Block Island last winter, lecture some three or four weeks on the perpetuity of God's law, and the messages of Rev. xiv, I decided to keep the Sabbath of the Lord and walk at liberty. I have only to regret that I was no more like David who made haste and delayed not to keep God's commandments. Ps. cxix, 60.

I now believe firmly the third angel of Rev. xiv, 9, is on the wing; and his message embraces the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Solemn hour! The last message of mercy being given to this judgment-bound world! And when it is finished, then comes one like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.

Oh for more of the Spirit to quicken and give all the life and power God's people should have in this important work! My prayer is, that God would raise up men that will obey him, and seek his precepts, not shunning to declare all his counsel; men that will be led by his Spirit, that leads into all truth. Let the cross be ever so mortifying, the men that will bear it meekly, patiently, and faithfully, God will own and bless. If all the world and backslidden churches forsake, the promise of God still is sure, I will never leave nor forsake thee.

Shall we not pray for a fresh baptism of his Spirit, while the mass are going deeper and deeper into the fatal snare? Shall not God's people draw nearer and nearer him, that we may feel his hallowed touch, and so be fitted for the work assigned us in this evil time, when to be living is indeed sublime?

Since embracing the truth of the Sabbath and third angel's message, I have endeavored to become acquainted with Seventh-day Adventists whose leading organ is the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, and the more I learn of that people, the more I am persuaded that they have been misrepresented to me, both by a few that keep the Sabbath of the Lord, and quite a number that do not.

Why do men oppose the day God made for them, or gave them, by sanctifying it, thus preparing it for their holy or religious use? To me it is a rich blessing. Thank God for the Sabbath. I hail it with pleasure; I love its holy hours. Why, the fourth commandment is one of the essential truths needed to keep the people of God from being led to deny, as very many of professed Christians do, the record of creation as found in Gen. i, saying that it was six thousand years perhaps, when it is so explicit that the evening and the morning were the first day, second day, &c.

How unsettled men become, when they leave the old rock bottom of truth, for their sandy foundation. This will not do for me. God's word is truth. It needs no amendments.

I was once asked if I thought it was essential to man's salvation to believe that God created the heavens and earth and all that in them is, as recorded in Gen. i. I answered by saying that it was to me; for if I should deny it, I should grieve his Spirit and so step on the road to infidelity.

But I must close. I will say that there is a large field in this region for labor. Some few have come into the truth, and are keeping the Sabbath, others are reading to inform themselves. We wish some good brother could come this way and give lectures on present truth. We think good would be the result. The Lord speed on the message according to his good pleasure, and bring deliverance to his weeping, groaning, people.

These are evil times. Men will not endure sound doctrines. It is with them, conversion of the world, and "My Lord delays his coming," or no resurrection of the wicked, and no law. So the wicked are supported in their wrong. Truly it is time for the Lord to work; for they have made void his law. Oh that he may work in mighty power by his people that delight in his word and wait for his law, to do it. Amen.

P. C. RODMAN.

Ashaway, R. I.