EXACTLY RIGHT by Calvin Monroe

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, January 8, 1880

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 2

EXACTLY RIGHT.

By Calvin Monroe

BY CALVIN MONROE.

To be exactly right is to be like Christ, as we must be to be saved by him. Is he as fine gold? so must his followers be. He is our example. He was all devotion to the great work of salvation, for which he came to earth, suffered, and died. He lost no time, nor should we. “To win one soul from Satan to Christ,” said Matthew Henry, “would afford me greater joy than to possess a mountain of silver and gold.”

Christ was solemn. He was often bathed in tears of pity and compassion for poor, lost sinners, but we have no record that he ever smiled. He knew the guilt and danger of the people, and warned them faithfully. Do we thus warn them and watch for their souls as they that must give account? or, in default of this, do we turn away and weep before God for our negligence? Let us take as many as possible with us to Mount Zion. To be faithful to others, we must be faithful to God and our own souls.

When Prof. Stuart, of Andover Theological Seminary, was building a dwelling-house, he inquired of the “boss” workman if he had got the sills plumb, or exactly right. “About right,” was the reply. The professor was not a little offended, and betrayed the want of being exactly right himself, though a “master of Israel.” So he returned to his study. After a while he came out again, repeating his question, to which the boss replied, “Exactly right.” “That will do, that will do,” was the response.

Here again we have a lesson in point; and can we think the Great Architect will be less particular in building the house of his church, that is to stand for eternal ages? Nay, verily; the church must be like its Head. Such a people will be very unlike the nominal churches of these last days, loaded with about twenty faults as recorded by the apostle (2 Tim. 3:1–5), any one of which would shut the offender out of Heaven. Yet they claim to be safe, for they are up to the common standard,—“about right.” By this rule they are lulled to sleep, or rather kept asleep, having never been awakened to the evil of sin or the dangers of the soul. Are they not, many of them, if not all, eager for the world, its riches, honors, or territory? In the outset three feet of earth was enough, and at the close of life six or seven will do; but between the cradle and the grave all is not enough.

Our business here is to get well out of the world. We should have our citizenship, our conversation, in Heaven, while we are strangers here. We should thus feel more at home there than here, holiness being so much more congenial to us than sin or sinners.

How is it with us as a people,—with us who have the third angel’s message? I think of our condition with mingled emotions. While on the one hand we see much in which to rejoice and for which to praise God, on the other there is not a little to deplore. What says Elder Butler, who has ample means of knowing, in the REVIEW of Feb. 20, 1879, of our people as a body? Speaking of the cold and backslidden state of the churches, he says: “And alas that we are forced to say it! thousands of Seventh-day Adventists are in the same state.” This is humiliating and mournful, and seems like an illustration of the text, “Many are called, but few are chosen.”

But has not Satan a hand in all this? Yes; he has been at the bottom of the mischief and wickedness in the world all the way from Eden to this last awful, closing hour. He headed all the persecutions against Christians, in which, it is said, “the blood of the saints flowed like rivers of water”! He is also responsible for the blood shed in war, and this, it has been calculated by competent authorities, would, if collected into one vast reservoir, “float all the navies of the globe.”

As Satan’s doom approaches, his wrath increases. It is seen on all sides, in floods, fires, cyclones, tornadoes, volcanoes, earthquakes, wars, famines, plagues, and pestilence. These are as drops before that mighty storm that will wind up the tragedy of earth, and make a clean sweep of Satan and his kingdom. Rev. 20:9. Thus there is meaning to the words of God when he said: “Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth he hath but a short time.” Is it not time to notice this battle that is so close upon us? If so, let the saints turn to Jer. 25 and read the whole story, in connection with Rev. 16. The saints we say, for others will not believe, preferring ignorance as a refuge. 2 Pet. 3:5.

Spiritualism, or diabolism, that is so rampant, will have much to do with the great battle, gathering the forces thereof.

If we wish to be exactly right, let us awake, spring to our feet, and run for life, eternal life. The King’s business requires haste. The time is short. We have none to lose. We go not this way again. No second probation; no second edition to the book of life here nor hereafter to any but those who do good, and go down in hope of the resurrection of the just. Such live on while God lives.

The Bible tells us, with all plainness, what we must do to be saved. It tells us to reform, and be like Jesus, holy, sinless, lovely. The reformation is no small one, and it can only be accomplished in the strength of the Lord, so that he may have all the praise. We are not simply to read the Bible, but to study it prayerfully. It thus pays well, and speeds our upward flight. Not so with other books and papers, except so far as their teachings are based on the Bible. We should like to see more of God and less of man in our reading matter. We should like to see the study of the Bible oftener and more warmly recommended. Has Satan so much to do with the affairs of the people, and nothing to do with their reading matter, even inside the doors of the church? If not, why does our Lord caution all to take heed what they read, or “hear”? And why does he command us to “search the Scriptures”? John 5:39.

Are we strangers and pilgrims here, in a dark, dismal world, far from our native regions? Let us feel and behave as such, unlike those who have here pitched their tents, that are the next hour to be swept away with their contents, and to be found no more. Benighted here as we are, God has given us a lamp to light us home. Let us take it, and make the best of our way in that direction. There being nothing to detain us here, we have virtually taken leave of earth. What remains to be done is to complete the lesson of becoming exactly right in the school of Christ. In no other school can we be trained for Heaven; from no other, graduate to life and immortality.

A rod is sometimes used in school. Jesus has one, and he knows how to use it to secure the benefit and love of his pupils. ’T is not of choice, but of necessity, that he makes use of it. The writer feels this rod daily, in various ways. To say nothing of others, Bro. White’s deep and heavy trials have, under God, made him the good and useful man that he is.

Once more, to be exactly right we must write “Holiness to the Lord,” on all we have, and throw all on the altar of God, ourselves not excepted, and never take off a thing; instead of this, let us daily search for more and better things to add to those already there, and invite others to do the same. This is to obey Jesus by laying up “treasure in Heaven.” The wicked, instead of this, throw themselves and all that they have upon the altar of Satan, and thus lose all.

Last, but not least, in order to be exactly right we must have “a broken and a contrite heart.” “I am not fit to address a sinner,” said Dr. Payson, “without a broken heart myself.” When, on his death-bed, prayers were proposed for the pious, amiable Dr. Woods, he replied, “There is no prayer that meets my case but that of the publican, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’” A broken heart is the basis of all true piety. The writer is more and more impressed with this, as he draws near the close. Who among his brethren and sisters does not sympathize with him in this grace? Would that all did, that all might be ripe, and ready, when our Lord calls, to leave this sin-cursed and fire-doomed world, and be at home,

where life is not a breath, our space a point, our joys sorrows,—where tears are not always flowing nor sin prevailing; but where all things are exactly right,—the place, the society, the harmony, the employment,—all, all, exactly right, forever and ever. Let us then stretch our glad wings, and be away,—away from all the restless, worthless, dying things of earth, and be at home,—to stray no longer, no more to be deceived or polluted by sin or Satan, but safe with all the just in the bosom of God’s eternal love.

Waldo, Me.