March 2  Bates Gets The Sabbath-3

For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Matt. 5:18. ESV.

Among those Seventh Day Baptists who interacted with the Millerites, one of the more significant is Rachel Oakes. By early 1844 she had not only accepted the Advent  message, but had shared her Sabbath perspective with the Adventist congregation in Washington, New Hampshire, where her daughter (Mrs. Cyrus Farnsworth) was a member.

Her first convert, apparently, was William Farnsworth, who had earlier convinced her on the Millerite teachings.

Another person she brought to the Sabbath was Frederick Wheeler, who, while preaching in the Washington church, remakred that all persons confessing communion with Christ should "be ready to follow Him, and obey and keep God's commandments in all things."

Later Rachel Oaks reminded Wheeler of his remarks. "I came near getting up in the meeting at that point," she told him, "and saying something."

"What was it you had in mind to say?" Wheeler asked.

"I wanted to tell you that you would better set that communion table back and put the cloth over it, until you begin to keep the commandments of God."

Wheeler was somewhat in shock from her frontal assault. He later told a spoken to him." But he thought them over, studied the Bible on the topic, and soon began to observe the seventh-day Sabbath.

That was apparently in March 1844. Subsequently, several members of the Washington congregation joined Wheeler and William Farnsworth in honoring the biblical Sabbath.

When I get to the kingdom, one person I want to look up is Rachel Oakes. She must have been a real character. The least we can say about her is that she certainly wasn't bashful about sharing her beliefs. God had given her a voice, and she used it in spreading His Sabbath truth. I don't know if her approach was Christ-centered or somewhat offensive, but I trust that it was the former since Wheeler, a Methodist minister, did not turn away from her in disgust.

One of the lessons of Rachel Oakes is that we never know the widespread influence we have on other people. And that goes for all of us. Even you!

Christ will never abandon the soul for whom He has died. The soul may leave Him and be overwhelmed with temptation, but Christ can never turn from one for whom He has paid the ransom of His own life(TFMB, 118).