p. 175 | What is the Matter? by E. G. Doud

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 1, 1866

What is the Matter?

By E. G. Doud

THERE is great dearth in Zion. The life of the popular churches is fast ebbing out. Their members are on the decrease, and their efforts to win souls to God do not prosper. Such an effect cannot be without its corresponding cause. The effect is extensive, hence the cause must be great. The religious press feels sad and often mourns over the condition of religion in the earth; but have they learned the cause of all this? Should they not be inquiring, What is the matter? Remove the cause and the effect will cease. What then is the cause?

Let the prophet Jeremiah answer. He says, "The pastors are become brutish, and have not sought the Lord; therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered." Jer. x, 21. Again in Micah we read a lesson with regard to those whose business it is to build up Zion, he says, "The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money; yet will they lean upon the Lord and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us." Micah iii, 11. What is the consequence of their acting thus? We read it in the 12th verse, "Therefore shall Zion for your sakes be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest." Mark the desolation here brought to view. Can Zion or Jerusalem rejoice when in such condition? Is it any wonder that the church mourns? Again Paul tells us "that in the last days perilous times shall come, for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy; without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away." 2 Tim. iii, 1-5.

Thus we see there is something wrong with those who have a name to live in the church. They retain the form of godliness, but it is as a shadow. The substance has departed. Is it not plain in the light of God's word what is the matter? God grant that the third angel's message may raise up a people free from all these causes of spiritual dearth, whose God is the Lord.

E. G. DOUD.

Vassar, Mich.