March 5 - Bates Spreads The Sabbath-2

Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you. 1 Peter 3:15.

To put it mildly, Joseph Bates was an enthusiastic witness for his new-found understanding of the seventh-day Sabbath. In 1854, for example, young Stephen N Haskell (a first-day Adventist preacher) met that whirlwind of energy, conviction, and entusiasm. The 21-year-old Haskell had been introduced to the seventh-day Sabbath, but was not totally convicted on the topic.

Then somone directed Bates to Haskell's house. Haskell reports that Joseph spent 10 days with them, preaching every night as well as on Sabbath and Sunday. But beyond that the irrepressible Bates held a Bible study for Haskell and a few others "from morning until noon, and from noon until night, and then in the evening until the time we went to bed."

"He did that for ten successive days," Haskell later reported, "and I have been a Seventh-day Adventist ever since." He never once doubted the importance of the Sabbath thereafter. Bates had done it again.

But he wasn't always successful in his witness. One of his greatest failures took place in August 1846, the month he first met a young Christian Connexion preacher and his girlfriend-James White and Ellen Harmon. Bates, of course, let loose with one of his extensive Bible stuides on what had become his favorite topic. The result? Failure! Total failure!

Both rejected his teaching on the seventh-day Sabbath. Ellen recalled that "Elder Bates was keeping the Sabbath, and urged its importance. I did not feel its importance, and thought that Elder B. erred in dwelling upon the fourth commandment more than upon the other nime"(1888 LS 236, 237).

His meeting of James White and his future wife weren't the only important events to take place in August 1846. That month saw the marriage of James and Ellen and it also witnessed the publication of Bate's first little book on the Sabbath, entitled The Seventh-day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign.

But before turning to those events we need to look a bit longer at Bates. We can learn at least three lessons from him. First, that it is easy to become one-sided and unbalanced in our presentation of the biblical message. Second, that even the most zealous fail from time to time. Third, that failure is not an excuse to stop trying.

To us, as to Peter, the word is spoken, "Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." Luke 22:31, 32. Thank God, we are not left alone. He who "so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16), will not desert us in the battle with the adversary of God and man. "Behold," He says, "I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you." Luke 10:19.(TFMB, 119).