The Solemn Warning

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 23, 1866

The Solemn Warning.

"Church of the living God! hast thou heard the voice that spoke from Heaven, 'Surely I come quickly!' And hast thou responded to it gladly, 'Even so come, Lord Jesus?' Does the promise of his return cheer thee? And is the thought of his speedy coming a most welcome hope in these days, when men's hearts are failing them for fear? Then how is this prospect operating? Is it full of quickening, animating, stimulating power? Is it kindling up your love into greater warmth? Is it increasing the intensity of your earnestness? Is it making the separation between you and the world a more decided thing? Is it imparting a deeper solemnity to your deportment, and attaching an unutterable importance to every word and action? Is it rebuking idleness, and sloth, and vanity, and frivolity, and levity and selfishness? Has it uprooted and destroyed in you covetousness and worldliness, those two master-sins of the evil age? And has it made you liberal and generous, enlarging your heart to give—to give with no sparing hand so long as the time remaineth? Ah! brethren in Christ, we are surely far behind! Our religion is a poor, second-rate, ineffective thing! We are dreaming when we should be working; we are pleasing and indulging the flesh when we should be serving the Lord. We are indolent and yielding, when we should be energetic and indomitable. We are shrinking and fastidious when we should be resolute and hardy. We sit idly in our tents, with weapons sheathed and banners folded, when we should be in the thickest of the fight; for the world's last conflict is begun, and the armies are mustering for the battle of the great day of God Almighty.

"And you, ye men of the earth, whose portion is not among the things unseen, have you heard the voice that speaks to you from Heaven—'Fear God, and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come?' Has the warning pierced your ears and broke your mad security? How long do you count it safe to remain unreconciled? And what sort of reconciliation with God will avail you in the day when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth? And when is he to arise? Have you ascertained the time, that you sit so easy and unalarmed? The long pent-up winds are beginning to break loose; and the sudden bursts of tempest that have swept over Europe these few years past are precursors of the world's last desolating storm. At present there is a lull, but it will be brief; and behind that lull there is the more terrible tempest; and behind that tempest there is the Judge of the quick and the dead; and behind the Judge are the everlasting burnings. Has this prospect no terrors for you, and have these terrors no urgency to compel you to consider the overwhelming necessity of betaking yourselves to the provided shelter, ere another day with all its gloomy uncertainties shall have dawned upon you?

"The warfare has now begun in our land, which will not be ended save by the arrival of the King himself. How far the assault may prevail, or how long the tide of war may flow and reflow, we do not pretend to say. Let us prepare for the worst.

"And what, if behind and above all these, there be heard a shout and a trumpet more awful and unearthly than these—the announcement of the coming Judge in flaming fire? Are you ready? Are you hidden in the clefts of that rock to which no weapon, no storm, no fire can reach? He alone is safe who has reached the hiding-place; and that hiding-place stands with its unfolded gates ready to receive you now. Will you enter? Or will you remain without? Remain without, and perish in the fiery storm! 'For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise and garments rolled in blood, but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.' It is now, in these last days, as in the days of Noah. God's purpose of vengeance has been declared, the warning has come, and the judgment is making haste to follow. But the ark is still open, and the preacher of righteousness beckons you in. For one hundred and twenty years Noah preached, but the unheeding world heard him not. Then he entered the Ark and for seven days he remained there before the deluge came, and standing at the open door of the Ark he delivered God's last message of grace, entreating men to come in. It seems as if we were now in the period corresponding to these seven last days—proclaiming God's last loving message to long-resisting man! For what, then, are you waiting? Are you lingering in the hope that the millennial day will softly steal in upon the world, and that then you will be converted with all the rest? Alas for you! Do you not know that between you and that glory there lies a region as dark as midnight, and strewed with terrors such as earth has not yet witnessed? Why, then, do you wait without? There is room enough within, and will you not go in and occupy it? There is love enough, and will you not go in and taste it? There is blessedness enough, and will you not go in and enjoy it? It will cost you nothing; and you are welcome! The Father bids you welcome; and the Son bids you welcome; and the Spirit bids you welcome; and angels bid you welcome; and every saved one bids you welcome; and with so many welcomes will you still hesitate or delay—preferring death to life, shame to honor, wrath to love, the horrors of the outer darkness to the glory of that city where they need no light of the sun!'