IN DEFENSE OF THE FAITH
The
Truth About Seventh-day Adventists
A
REPLY TO CANRIGHT
by
William
H. Branson
LET IN THE LIGHT
THE great issues
involved in this discussion are altogether too vital to be lightly
considered. The
truth of God is more
precious than gold, and we are bidden to search for it as for rubies. We
believe we
have clearly shown that
in renouncing Seventh-day Adventism, Mr. Canright also renounced many of
the
great fundamental
principles of the gospel, and in reality, placed himself on the side of
the opposers of the
truth. Every argument
that he has advanced against the doctrines of the Seventh-day Adventists
breaks
down upon examination,
and those who are misled by them are surely building their spiritual
houses upon
the sand.
The Word of God is the
only safe and secure foundation on which one can build his hope of
eternal life. Be a
doctrine ever so popular, if it is not established on that Word, it is
unworthy of acceptance.
Nor does the
unpopularity of a doctrine prove it to be false. Truth has never been
popular. She has always
had to plead her cause,
and has suffered much ridicule at the hands of so-called wise men.
In the sixteenth
century, as light broke over the world that led away from and out of the
night of
papal supremacy, the
Reformers were sorely persecuted and everywhere denounced by the
recognized
religious leaders of
their day. Their enemies pounced upon them like dogs of war. Yet the
messages of
these Reformers were
Heaven sent, and finally came to be recognized as light from above.
But those early
Reformers did not receive a full and complete revelation of all the
truths which
had been lost sight of
during the Dark Ages, when the church was in apostasy. A fine statement
of this fact
is found in the notable
farewell address of Rev. John Robinson, pastor of the English Puritans,
to the many
members of his
congregation who turned from Holland to seek homes in the New World. On
this
memorable occasion he
said:
Brethren, we are now
ere long to part asunder, and the Lord knows whether I shall live ever
to
see your faces more.
But whether the Lord bath appointed it or not, I charge you before God
and His
blessed angels to
follow me no farther than I have followed Christ. If God should reveal
anything to you by
any other instrument of
His, he as ready to receive it as ever you were to receive any truth of
my ministry;
for I am very confident
the Lord hath more truth and light yet to break forth out of His holy
word....
Remember your church
covenant, in which you have agreed to walk in all the ways of the Lord,
made or
to be made known unto
you. Remember your promise and covenant with God and with one another,
to
receive whatever light
and truth shall be made known to you from His written word; but withal,
take heed, I
beseech you, what you
receive for truth, and compare it and weigh it with other scriptures of
truth before
you accept it; for it
is not possible the Christian world should come so lately out of such
thick anti-Christian
darkness, and that full
perfection of knowledge should break forth at once. W. C. MARTYN,
History of
the English Puritans,
vol. 5, pp. 70, 71.
For my part, I
cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the reformed churches, who
are come to
a period in religion,
and will go at present no farther than the instruments of their
reformation. The
Lutherans cannot be
drawn to go beyond what Luther saw; . . . and the Calvinists, you see,
stick fast where
they were left by that
great man of God, who yet saw not all things. This is a misery much to
be lamented;
for though they were
burning and shining lights in their time, yet they penetrated not into
the whole counsel
of God, but were they
now living, would be as willing to embrace further light as that which
they first
received. D. NEAL,
History of the Puritans (Two Vol. ed., 1848), vol. 1, p. 269.
In these remarks Mr.
Robinson was right. The uncovering and unfolding of the truths of the
gospel in the
last days is a matter
of prophecy, and it is progressive. The path of the just is as the
shining light, that
shines more and more
unto the perfect day. Proverbs 4:18. The fact that a doctrine appears
new is no
argument against it.
The fact that Seventh-day Adventism dates back only a generation is no
evidence that
it does not constitute
a message from God to the world. Quite to the contrary: God has told us
of the rise
and spread of just such
a message, and the only proper ground for questioning would be found in
its failure
to come.
Thus we read in Malachi
3:1, 2:
Behold, I will send
My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me: and the Lord, whom
you seek,
shall suddenly come to
His temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom you delight in:
behold, He
shall come, says the
Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of His coming? And who shall
stand when
He appears? For He is
like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap.
Also the prophet Joel
tells of this preparatory message in the following graphic language:
'Slow you the trumpet
in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain: let all the inhabitants
of the land
tremble: for the day of
the Lord comes, for it is nigh at hand. Joel 2:1.
To John on lonely
Patmos the rise and work of this message was also revealed, and he said:
I saw another angel
fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto
them that
dwell on the earth, and
to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud
voice, Fear
God, and give glory to
Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made
heaven, and
earth, and the sea, and
the fountains of waters.
And there followed
another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city,
because she made all
nations drink of the
wine of the wrath of her fornication.
And the third angel
followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast
and his image,
and receive his mark in
his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the
wrath of God,
which is poured out
without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be
tormented with fire
and brimstone in the
presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb.
Revelation 14:6-10.
Here is a special
message from God which sweeps through the whole earth. It takes in all
people and
tongues. It announces
that the hour of His [God's] judgment is come. It warns against
the beast (the papal
power which changed
God's law and Sabbath), and against the reception of his mark.
In verse 12 we learn
that the result of this message will be the gathering out of a people
from the nations of
the earth who will obey
all God's commandments. Of them it is said, Here is the patience of
the saints:
here are they that keep
the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
Immediately after this,
John says:
I looked, and
behold. a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of
man, having on His
head a golden crown,
and in His hand a sharp sickle and another angel came out of the temple,
crying with
a loud voice to Him
that sat on the cloud, Thrust in Thy sickle, and reap: for the time is
come for Thee to
reap; for the harvest
of the earth is ripe. And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle
on he earth; and
the earth was
reaped. Revelation 14:14-16.
Thus we see that the
message which prepares the way for the coming of the divine harvester
(Jesus) is the
judgment-hour message which leads men to the keeping of the Commandments
of God and
the faith of Jesus.
There is no conflict between these two. The faith (the teachings or
doctrines) of Jesus, is
not contrary to the
commandments of God, and those who truly follow Jesus and who make
proper
preparation for His
coming will horror and obey His law. There was nothing in the life,
death, or
resurrection of Christ
that in any way lessened the authority of the moral code.
No more God -
dishonoring doctrine could be preached than that the atonement of Christ
has freed
men from the obligation
to obey God's moral law. To make it possible for man to obey was its
highest and
holiest object. Is it
reasonable that Christ should die to save men from the guilt of
transgression, give them
a free pardon for the
past, and then say to them, Now you are free; go steal, lie, commit
adultery, kill,
desecrate the Sabbath
of God, etc.? No! A thousand time no! Saved men are not free to break
the law of
God. True, they are set
free from its condemnation for sins of the past which they themselves
were
powerless to undo, but
license has not been given them to presume upon God's goodness by
continuing in
transgression.
A man can be forgiven
and justified before God who has never kept the law, but he can not
remain in this
justified state without
keeping it. He does not keep the law in order to become a Christian,
but, being a
Christian, he must keep
it in a manner that becomes one.
Know you not that
the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived:
neither
fornicators, nor
idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves
with mankind, nor
thieves, nor covetous,
nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom
of God. And
such were some of you:
but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the
name of the
Lord Jesus, and by the
Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.
Not every one that
says unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he
that doeth the
will of My Father which
is in heaven. Matthew 7:21.
Be you doers of the
word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. James 1:22.
Thus God calls men back
to the keeping of His holy law. This includes the seventh-day Sabbath
and all. Of
the heralds of this
message it is said:
They that shall be
of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shall raise up the
foundations of many
generations; and thou
shall be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to
dwell in.
If thou turn away
thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and
call the Sabbath
a delight, the holy of
the Lord, honorable; and shall honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor
finding
thine own pleasure, nor
speaking thine own words: then shall thou delight thyself in the Lord;
and I will
cause thee to ride upon
the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob
thy father: for
the mouth of the Lord
bath spoken it. Isaiah 58:12-14.
This, then, is a
message of Sabbath reform. It constitutes a turning back to the old
paths of God's Word, the
paths spoken of by
David when he said, Make me to go in the path of Thy commandments;
for therein do
I delight. Psalms
119:35.
This we believe is the
Elijah message promised in Malachi's prophecy where he said: Behold,
I will send
you Elijah the prophet
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. Malachi
4:5.
Now the outstanding
event in Elijah's experience was the mighty reformation he brought about
in Israel on
the point of regard for
the law of God. After the three and one-half years of drought, during
which time
Elijah was in hiding,
he was bidden of God to go acid appear before
Ahab the king. And
it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou
lie that
troubleth Israel? He
was thus charged with responsibility for the awful drought that had
caused so much
suffering in Israel.
But Elijah answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy
father's house, in that
you have forsaken the
commandments of the Lord, and thou has followed Baalim. 1 Kings
18:17-19.
When the people were
gathered together, fire was sent down from heaven to prove that Elijah's
message
was true and that he
was God's servant, and the outcome of it all was a mighty reformation in
Israel.
Now just such a message
is to be given again before the Second Advent of Christ. God's promise
is,
Behold, I will send
you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day
of the Lord.
Just as in the days of
Elijah, many of the professed people of God have forsaken His
commandments, and are
following the doctrines of a false god. In the keeping of Sunday they
are obeying
the mandates of the
papal church, whose head has exalted himself to the position of
another god on earth.
He is spoken of as
Lord. God the Pope. The church of which he is head has given us a
new Sabbath and a
changed law. It has
cast the truth to the ground. Daniel 8:12. But just as the world is
about to meet its
God over His broken
law; just as men are about to be summoned before the great judgment seat
of Christ to
be weighed in the
balances of the Lord, the Elijah message is sent forth, calling the
nations back again into
full harmony with the
law of their God. Once again the words of Elijah are pertinent:
Elijah came unto all
the people, and said, How long halt you between two opinions? if the
Lord be God,
follow Him: but if
Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word. 1
Kings 18:21.
Said the great
evangelist Moody:
The law that was
given at Sinai has lost none of its solemnity. Time cannot wear out its
authority or the
fact of its authorship.
. . .
Now men may cavil as
much as they like about other parts of the Bible, but I have never met
an honest
\man that found fault
with the Ten Commandments. Infidels may mock the Lawgiver, and reject
Him who
has delivered us from
the curse of the law, but they can't help admitting that the
commandments are right.
Renan said that they
are for all nations, and will remain the commandments of God during all
the centuries.
If God created this
world, He must make some laws to govern it. In order to make life safe
we must have
good laws; there is not
a country the sun shines upon that does not possess laws. Now this is
God's law. It
has come from on high,
and infidels and skeptics have to admit that it is pure.
'The law of the
Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is pure,
making wise the
simple: the statutes of
the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is
pure,
enlightening the eyes.'
Now the question for
you and me is, Are we keeping thesecommandments? Have we fulfilled all
the
requirements of the
law? If God made us, as we know He did, He had a right to make that law;
and if we
don't use it aright, it
would have been better for us if we had never had it, for it will
condemn us. We shall
he found wanting. The
law is all right, but are we right? -Weighed and Wanting, pp. 11, 12.
Some people seem to
think we have got beyond the commandments. What did Christ say? 'Think
not that I
am come to destroy the
law and the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For
verily I say unto
you, Till heaven and
earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the
law, till all be
fulfilled.' The
commandments of God given to Moses in the mount at Horeb are as binding
today as ever
they have been since
the time when they were proclaimed in the hearing of the people. The
Jews said the
law was not given in
Palestine (which belonged to Israel), but in the wilderness, because the
law was for ill
nations.
Jesus never
condemned the law and the prophets, but He did condemn those who. did
not obey
them. Because He gave
new commandments, it does not follow that He abolished the old. Christ's
explanation of them
made them all the more searching. - Ibid., pp. 14, 15.
The conviction
deepens in me with the years, that the old truths of the Bible must be
stated and
restated in the
plainest possible 1anguage. -Ibid., p. 15.
The people must be
made to understand that the Ten Commandments are still binding, and that
there is a penalty
attached to their violation. We do not want a gospel of mere sentiment.
The sermon on the
mount did not blot out
the Ten Commandments.
When Christ came, He
condensed the statement of the law into this form: 'Thou shall love the
Lord thy God with all
thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with
all thy mind; and
thy neighbor as
thyself.' Paul said: 'Love is the fulfilling of the law.' But does this
mean that the detailed
precepts of the Ten
Commandments are superseded, and have become back numbers? Does a father
cease
to give children rules
to obey because they love him? Does a nation burn its statute books
because the
people have become
patriotic? Not at all. And yet people speak as if the commandments do
not hold for
Christians because they
have come to love God. Paul said: 'Do we then make void the law through
faith?
God forbid. Yea, we
establish the law.' It still holds good. The commandments are necessary.
So long as we
obey, they do not rest
heavy upon us; but as soon as we try to break away, we find they are
like fences to
keep us within bounds.
Horses need bridles even after they have been properly broken in. . . .
Now face these Ten
Commandments honestly and prayerfully. See if your life is right and if
you
are treating God
fairly. God's statutes are just, are they not? If they are right, let us
see if we are right. Let
us pray that the Holy
Ghost may search each one of us. Let us get alone with God and read His
law-read it
carefully and
prayerfully, and ask Him to show us our sins and what He would have us
to do. -Ibid., pp.
16, 17.
If in perusing this
volume the reader has been convinced that he has been living in
violation of some
command of God, we
earnestly beseech him to turn this day from such transgression, and
yield obedience
to God's requirements.
We are soon to be weighed in the balances. Shall we risk heaven by
continuing in
disobedience? We cannot
shut our eyes to light and truth, and still be found just before God.
The Lord
declares, He that
turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be
abomination. Proverbs
28:9.'
How pitiful is the case
of one who, through the rejection of light, has come to the place where
his
prayers are unanswered
and his petitions remain ungranted. But let none undertake to keep God's
holy law
in human weakness. It
is only by the grace of God and the indwelling of Christ Jesus in the
heart that man
can do anything good.
Our weakness must take hold upon His unfailing strength if we would
succeed in our
efforts to attain to
the righteousness of the law. He is able to work in you both to will
and to do of His
good pleasure. He
can strengthen you with might by His Spirit in the inner man.
Ephesians 3:16. If
Christ, who knocks at
the heart's door, is permitted to come in, He will ascend the heart's
throne, and will
exercise His kingly
power in subduing the life and causing it to conform to His will as
revealed in His holy
law. He is able to save
to the uttermost. He can do exceeding abundantly above all we ask
or think, and
with Paul we can say,
I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.
Philippians 4:13.
Thus we see the Christ
of the atonement, by whose blood we are cleansed from past sins, coming
to dwell and work in us
even to the point of making us perfect in every good work. This,
then, is the
crowning work of the
world's Redeemer. Not only does He pardon repenting sinners, but He
fully restores
His image in them by
bringing them back into harmony with God's holy law through the power of
His own
indwelling presence.
Dear reader, have you
often mourned that you found it hard to be good and obey God's
requirements? Of course
you have. You might well go further, and say that it is humanly
impossible, for so
it is. There is none
that does good, no not one. Romans 3:12. But the indwelling Christ
makes all the
difference between
success and failure. He has all power in heaven and in earth, and He
offers to bring that
power to bear upon the
weak tendencies of your nature, and make you mighty through God to do
His will;
and with God, nothing
is impossible. .
This is what David
meant when he said, I will run the way of Thy commandments, when Thou
shall enlarge` my
heart. Psalms 119:32. 1 cried unto Thee: Save me, and I shall keep
[margin, that I may
keep] Thy
testimonies. Psalms 119:146. Those, therefore, who have the sweet,
abiding presence of Jesus
in their hearts will be
led to declare with David, 0 how love I Thy law! it is my meditation
all the day.
Psalms 119:97. And if
Jesus is allowed full and complete control, they will have the great joy
of seeing the
power of sin subdued in
their lives and every thought brought into captivity to the will of
Christ.
Will you, then, dear
reader, open wide the, heart's door and let Prince Emmanuel in? Will you
tell
Him that you are
willing that He should live His life of perfect obedience to the moral
law of God in your
flesh? Will you do
this, not only today, but every day? If so, then you will daily know the
joy of wearing
the robe of His
righteousness, and in the day of God you will stand before Him
unashamed.
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