IS IT POSSIBLE? by Roswell F. Cottrell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · March 25, 1880

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 13

“IS IT POSSIBLE?”

By Roswell F. Cottrell

BY ELD. R. F. COTTRELL.

Can it be possible that any one who has seen the light of truth, which shines so clearly from the word of God on the events of these last days, has embraced the closing message of the gospel, which is being preached to the nations of the earth, and has run well for a season,—can it be possible that such should turn away, blinded and allured by worldly wealth or honor, or led by the deceitfulness of sin, and thus lose eternal life, bartering it away for less than a mess of pottage?

Can it be that those who have had faith that the present message is the fulfillment of the prophecy—a message from Heaven—and have given freely of their means to advance it, should now, as the work is so evidently drawing to a triumphant close, let their liberality dry up, covetously withhold the Lord’s tithes, let their ardor cool, and become alienated in their affections, and finally go to perdition? How sad the thought that any should backslide from the commandments of God, which are testing the world; and while we see the way rapidly preparing for the great trial of our faith by the enforcement of the worship of the image of the beast, that they should be unprepared to bear the test, and finally be found in the ranks of the enemies of God and share their fate.

Dear brethren, awake! arouse! Now is not the time to be indifferent. What we have looked for is speedily coming. There is work to be done; the world is to be warned; and unless we are sharing in this work, we shall not be able to stand. The faithful servant will give food to the household in due season. He will be found helping others, when the work shall close and the great day of wrath come. “Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing.”