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What Happened To Butler?-2
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Oct. 16-What Happened To Butler-2

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They still bring forth fruit in old age. Psalm 92:14, RSV.

Brother Butler was a tough old customer, but God loved him anyway. That's good news for most of us. He did have his repentant moments. In 1893, for example, he wrote to Ellen White that "the past few years" had "pretty effectually broken my back, but that is a small matter compared with the progress of the work." And by the autumn of 1894 Butler was even inviting A. T. Jones to help him at the Florida camp meeting.

In 1901, after his wife's death, Butler came out of his semiretirement to become president of the Florida Conference. Between 1902 and 1907 he served as president of the Southern Union Conference.

Ellen White rejoiced to see the aged pioneer back in a position of leadership. "I have known," she told the delegates at the 1903 General Conference session, "that the time would come when he would again take his place in the work. I want you to appreciate the trials he has passed through....God desires the gray-haired pioneers" who had a part in early Adventism "to stand in their place in His work today. They are not to drop out of sight" (1903 GCB 205).

The new Butler, she wrote in 1902, was not the same man he had been in 1888. Not only was he "strong in physical and spiritual health," but "the Lord has proved and tested and tried him, as he did Job and as he did Moses. I see in Elder Butler one who has humbled his soul before God. He has another spirit than the Elder Butler of younger years. He has been learning his lesson at the feet of Jesus" (Lt 77, 1902).

Such a bill of health did not mean that Butler was straight on the issues of 1888. He told General Conference president A. G. Daniells in 1909 that "he never could see light" in the messages of Jones and Waggoner. His motto was still "obey and live."

Despite his problems, Ellen White wrote of him, "Though he may make some mistakes, yet he is a servant of the living God, and I shall do all I possibly can to sustain him in his work" (Lt 293, 1905). Butler would remain surprisingly active in the church until his death in 1918 at the age of 84.

God uses even less-than-perfect people. And it's a good thing. Otherwise He would have nobody to use.

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Take us today, Lord, with all of our defects, and use us to Your glory. Amen.

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