“Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.” 

Isaiah 44:8

 

Witnessing

 

 

The duty of taking the Three Angels' Messages to the whole world rests upon us as Historic Seventh-day Adventists. Evan Sadler has had many years of experience as a street evangelist and has been doing what many more of us should be doing—sharing our faith with others. "We are living in a most solemn time. Important responsibilities are resting upon us. . . Angels of God are preparing ears to hear, and hearts to receive the message of warning. And in our very midst honest souls are living who have never yet heard the reasons of our faith. People are perishing for want of knowledge. Not one-hundredth part is being done that might be done to give the third angel’s message to the world." Review and Herald, October 22, 1914.

May these stories encourage you in your walk with the Lord and embolden you to be a mighty witness for Him. The Editors

The Priest that Wept

I had a priest weep once. In 1982 I was staying with a former Catholic couple who are now Seventh-day Adventists, because I had knocked on their door—at that time I only knew five Bible texts! And now the Sabbath was about to come in, and the phone rang. When I answered, my friend Jimmy said, "I’m in the mental institution, I’ve had a nervous breakdown. Would you come and see me?" I said certainly.

We prayed together before I went that I might help this man. When I arrived Jimmy said, "I’ll tell you, Evan, I’m a bit upset. You tell me that the Catholic church has changed the ten commandments and then we go to the priests and they tell us that you’re a heretic!"

But I said, "They didn’t tell you that they didn’t change it did they?"

His answer was, "I wish that there was a priest here and you and he could sort this thing out." I prayed, "Lord, I pray that you would open Jimmy’s eyes."

I was there about half an hour talking to this friend in the big lounge, and who do you think walked in the door? It was a priest! Jimmy and I had been talking things over and I had my Bible out, and after this priest walked around and talked to everybody, he came and sat down next to us. He was an old Irishman, 73 years old. He said, "And what would you be doing boys?"

Jimmy said, "Oh, father. We’re just looking at the Bible."

"Yes, sir," I said, "We’re just reading the Bible."

The priest said, "Oh, that’s wonderful! It’s the rock and the pillar of the faith."

I replied, "It’s the rock and pillar of my faith, sir."

He said, "Well, what else would you be talking about?"

I said, "Well, sir, we’re talking about deception."

He said, "Oh, yes? Why would you be talking about that?"

I said, "Well, it says in Matthew 24:37 that as it was in the days of Noah so it would be in the days of the coming of the Son of man. Doesn’t it say that?"

He answered, "It’s true, it’s there!"

I said, "Do you think, sir, that the world will be deceived by things that look good or by things that look bad?"

He said, "Well, the way you put it, it seems they’ll be deceived by the things that look good."

I said, "That’s right! How many were saved out of the flood?"

He said, "Well, the way you put it, it was four men and four women."

I said, "That’s right! And what about all the rest of the people that perished, did they think they were right or did they think they were wrong?"

He said, "Well, the way you put it, they must have thought they were right."

I said, "That’s right! Come down awhile till Jesus was killed—who was right at that time?"

He said, "Well, the way you put it, it must of been only Him."

I said, "That’s right! What about the major church at the time?"

He said, "Well, they must have been wrong—the way you put it."

I said, "Does this mean that Jesus was right and the whole of Israel was wrong?"

He said, "That’s right." And I said, "Now let’s come down to about the sixteenth century."

He said, "Wait a minute! What are you getting at?" Because he had been set up all the way, hadn’t he? I’d laid the ground, and I wasn’t trying to be funny. God wanted that man in heaven. But you can rest assured, friends, that anyone that will be there is going to have to go on God’s terms.

So he said, "Well, what are you getting at?"

"What I’m getting at, sir, is that the Catholic church has changed the ten commandments."

He said, "Now, we-we-we-we’ve never done that! We’ve not done that. We’ve only adjusted them!"

I said, "You have changed them. I’ve got the proof."

He said, "Well, we only adjusted them in the fourth century, but we’ve never changed them."

I said, "Jimmy, you rang me up and asked me to pray for you that you might see; because the priests told you one thing and I told you something else and you were confused and didn’t know what to believe. And here, by the grace of God, a priest has come along and sat down here and he’s told us that they’ve never changed the ten commandments, they’ve only adjusted them. Isn’t that double-Dutch?"

Jimmy blinked and said, "Yeah."

I told the priest, which was only my duty, "I can tell you when they changed them, why they changed them, from what they changed them, to what they changed them."

He wept. He said, "I’ve given me whole life to the church."

I said, "Brother, it’s time you gave the rest of your life to Jesus; because bricks and mortar can never save you."

The Evolutionist

A friend and I were on the street one night giving out tracts outside a university in New Zealand. My friend gave a tract to a student outside a McDonalds restaurant and who came along but the professor. A student had met him on the street and had said, "Look at this sacrilege! These people don’t believe in evolution."

Terrible isn’t it? "These people don’t believe in evolution." How sad!

He found my friend, and he said, "Did you give this tract out?"

My friend said, "Yes, I did sir, but my friend Evan up the road, he’s responsible for giving the tract out."

The professor said, "My name is Professor ‘Whatever-His-Name-Is.’ I’m qualified to tell you you’re wrong."

My friend said, "How come?"

He said, "Because I have a Ph.D."

My friend said, "Oh my! Is that right? You have a Ph.D.? Whoa!"

The professor said, "Yes." He didn’t realize my friend was taking the Mickey out of him.

My friend said, "Wow! I can’t argue with that." The professor grinned a bit. And then my friend said, "But I have a video at home, and it’s pro-Christianity, and it destroys evolution, and it was made by a man with two Ph.Ds. So your own argument is destroyed!"

So the professor’s head dropped and his tongue came out in exhaustion, because God will make fools out of the wise.

One Theologian

One day I was at the airport in Los Angeles and I had said a prayer that the Lord would protect me. I never take airplane flights for granted, I pray for protection. I also prayed that I might be able to talk to somebody on the plane who might be interested in salvation. We were in the air about 15 minutes. I had my old Bible open reading from Peter. I was sitting by the isle and a man was sitting by the window. He said to me, "I see you’ve been reading your Bible."

I said, "Yeah! That’s the only real thing you can count on in this world."

He said, "My name is Dr. ‘Such-and-Such’ from Spokane Presbyterian College and I’ve just been holding an evangelical campaign down in Brazil and I’m heading home. . ." He said, during the course of the conversation, that the ten commandments had been nailed to the cross.

I said to him, "The only thing you can count on is the Bible, and there’s only one other thing you can count on sir."

He said, "What’s that?"

I said, "Throughout history, theologians have always been on the wrong side."

And he said, "That’s a bit tuff isn’t it?"

I said, "That’s history friend. You tell me when the theologians have been right. At the time of the crucifixion of Christ? At the time of the Babylonian captivity? At the time of the flood? You show to me in history when the theologians have been right. They’ve never been right, the dead sure thing is that they’ve been wrong. Do you believe there’s going to be a judgment or not?"

He said, "Well, I think so."

I said, "The Bible says there is going to be a judgment. Who do you think God will hold responsible for all the wickedness in the world in the day of judgment?"

He said, "I don’t know, you tell me."

I said, "People like you. People like you who have said that the ten commandments were nailed to the cross. My Bible says that babes and fools will understand this truth, so I’m qualified to talk to you about this issue. You correct me if I’m wrong because I don’t want to be deluded and I don’t want to lose eternal life and I don’t want to deceive other people. I thought from what I’m seeing in the world that if ever the world needed the ten commandments it’s today, not tomorrow. I thought that Christians kept the ten commandments and heathens didn’t. And I thought Christians kept them not to be saved, that’s legalism. They keep them because they are saved. They don’t keep them in their own power, that’s not acceptable to God; they keep them through the power of the risen Christ in them."

He couldn’t fault that reasoning. But then I showed him the time of Moses. He grinned and said to me, "One thing, sir, if the ten commandments still stand, I want you to show me where every single one of them is in the New Testament." He looked at me with a dead serious look on his face because he knew that he had just trapped me—I could see that little grin behind his serious face. He wasn’t a professor for nothing, because he had been dealing with "legalists" for a long time.

"But you know," I said to him, "that’s an unfair question, sir. And it’s a difficult question, because you know that not one in 10,000 could answer that."

He said, "Probably not one in 100,000."

I said, "But you only asked me that question to make your case right and my case wrong. If I could prove to you where every single one of them were in the New Testament, what would that do to your case?" He had not thought about that. He had only asked the question to destroy our case as Adventists and he didn’t know that I was an Adventist yet.

I said, "I’ll show you where every single one of the ten commandments are in the New Testament." And I showed him Matthew 4:10: "Then saith Jesus unto him . . . it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve." He blinked. I showed him 1 John 5:21: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." "Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and His doctrine be not blasphemed." 1 Timothy 6:1. "For He spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all His works. And in this place again, If thy shall enter into My rest. Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief: again, He limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as is said, To day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts. For if Jesus had given them rest, then would He not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into His rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His." Hebrews 4:4–10. "But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day." Matthew 24:20. "I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day." Revelation 1:10. "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath: therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath." Mark 2:27, 28. "Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Romans 13:9. "Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Matthew 19:18, 19. There’s all your ten commandments.

He was visibly shocked. I didn’t tell him why I knew those ten commandments. Two weeks before I left New Zealand, George Burnside posted me a letter. In it was a copy of all the ten commandments in the New Testament. I had said to myself, "I’m going to memorize everyone of those texts, because some day someone’s going to ask me to show them where they are." Within two weeks it happened.

Then I said, "Well, friend, you asked me that to destroy my case; but your case is now destroyed."

He said, "I’m going to have to start keeping them and teaching them."

I said, "Don’t worry if you lose your $100,000 a year salary and your three cars and your big flashy house and your status in your community. Jesus said in Luke that the foxes have holes, the birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."

I believe God answered my prayer and sat me there next to that man. Then he looked at me and said, "You’re a Seventh-day Adventist aren’t you?"

I said, "Well, I never used to be; I used to be a Presbyterian, the same as you. But I found that we were sitting closer to Rome than I’d thought when I was a boy."

And he said to me, "You know, I want to come fishing in New Zealand sometime."

I said, "Certainly. Friend, this battle is for real. Alot of people are going to be lost."

He was visibly shaken. He said, "You know I went to college with Billy Graham, he’s a friend of mine."

I said, "Wow, is that right? I went to college with Jesus Christ, he’s a friend of mine."

I read to him 1 Corinthians 11, which says all these things happened for an example to us. I asked him this question, "When Moses brought Israel out of Egypt by the miracle of the Red Sea opening, God had thrown back to the Egyptians their false worship. Have you read of the Seven Last Plagues?"

He said, "Well I know a bit about them."

"Ah, is that right? Do you know where they are found?"

He said, "Well, they’re in the book of Revelation."

I said, "That’s right, do you know which chapter."

He said, "No, not off hand."

I said, "I’m going to read them to you in Revelation 16."

I read him the first three plagues and he said, "What are you getting at?"

I said, "Well, God threw back in the faces of the Egyptians their false worship with the plagues. In the same way, when Jesus brings spiritual Israel out of spiritual Egypt, He throws back in their faces their false worship by the seven last plagues." I read the 4th plague to him and he blinked a bit.

I said, "I’ve given you enough facts that you can work out why God threw back the sun in their faces in the fourth plague." This man happened to be a member of the Lord’s Day Alliance.

I said, "As Seventh-day Adventists, we have reservations about that organization. Why is the fourth plague to be the heating of the sun? And why, under the fifth plague, will darkness fall upon the seat of the beast?"

And so we talked . . .

Conclusion

We have the responsibility of taking the Three Angels' Messages to the entire world so that those who are still in Babylon can come out from the midst of her. The seven last plagues are judgments that are poured out against those who make up Babylon (see Revelation 18:4).

We need to earnestly pray that we will be among those who will give the Loud Cry Message that will prepare a people to stand before a holy God without a Mediator.

Evan Sadler