Our Responsibility by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 29, 1913

Our Responsibility

By Editor

How Will We Respond?

THE responsibilities of Seventh-day Adventists will be greatly increased as the result of this General Conference. In a vivid and striking manner have the representatives of the church been brought face to face with the conditions confronting us in giving to every nation the everlasting gospel. The crying needs of our great cities, of the heathen world, and of Catholic countries particularly, have been brought before the delegates and the large congregation in forcible appeals. The call for consecrated men and women to give themselves to the finishing of the work, the call for further means to supply the necessary equipment, has been sounded. And even above this call for men and means has come the call of Heaven, through those who have ministered in word and doctrine, to a new consecration.

What response will be made to these appeals? The response in the way of missionary offerings and of consecrated workers will be largely contingent upon the response made by the call for a new consecration, and this, after all, is the greatest need. In fact, the response to this call will carry with it the response to every other call in the cause of God. It is willing service that God can abundantly bless.

Read on another page in this number with the striking words of Elder I. H. Evans, the vice-president of the Asiatic Division of the General Conference, under the heading “Zeal for God in Finishing His Work.” Well does Elder Evans ask, How can this work ever be finished in this world and we go home to glory unless this church arouses itself, and we have a mighty outpouring of the Spirit of God upon us to fit us for service? If the time has not come now in the history of this work to place all upon the altar of God, when will that time ever come? How many years can we continue to increase our bank-accounts, to add farm to farm, to spend all the means we can obtain in erecting fine houses and providing ourselves with creature comforts?

We believe indeed, with all our hearts, that the time has been reached in God's providence when a mighty wave of consecration should sweep over this people and take possession of every heart. The first love needs to be revived in many souls, the former simplicity of living which once characterized this people should be resumed. The old-time simplicity of faith and zeal in personal missionary labor for souls, should possess every heart.

Some lives have lost the spirit of the message. They hold it only in form; their hearts are turning back into Egypt and after the things of the world. The resources of heaven await our demand and reception; the heavenly intelligences stand ready to cooperate with us. Let us relate ourselves to God by the surrender of self, the forsaking of sin, and the consecration of all upon the altar of service. Then he can work through us, and use us in the accomplishment of his design and purpose in our lives.