The certainty of our hope is precisely the same as the certainty of the final triumph of the great threefold message of Rev. 14:6-12. In other words, the question of its certainty all turns upon whether God will fulfil his own Word or not. To every true believer this is a matter involving no doubt.
Every worldly enterprise has more or less uncertainty connected with it. “A sure thing” is always considered the best investment, even if the good to be gained is some distance in the future. An investment of millions of dollars, with the satisfactory results far in the distance, never discourages investors, so long as the promised benefit is sure. Why is it that men dare risk so much in worldly enterprises, where more or less uncertainty is always involved, yet are fearful to trust God, whose word can never fail?
With all genuine Seventh-day Adventists, worldly hopes, prospects, and desires have become secondary, while the hope of salvation when Christ shall come, has become primary. Their faith is founded on God’s immutable Word. It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one letter, or point of a letter, of God’s Word to fail. Change and dissolution are everywhere apparent. Men’s hearts are failing for fear as they look at the prospects before them. Suicides are increasing at a fearful rate. More than ten thousand occurred within the last year. Even the moral foundations among the masses are trembling. Millions are losing faith in the Bible as a standard of authority. Tens of thousands in so-called Christian lands—are even seeking for light in the midnight darkness of old pagan religions, groping for light and truth in Spiritualism, various branches of occultism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Mohammedanism, when the precious light of God, the true lamp of life, is within easy reach. These things are signs of the times.
Much of this darkness has come because the churches have rejected the glorious light of prophecy. From the time of the great Reformation till the last days were reached, the Protestant churches were God’s light-bearers to the world. Then God sent forth the first angel’s message: “Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come.” Rev. 14:6, 7. This was the glorious announcement of the beginning of that grand assize, the supreme court of the universe sitting in judgment upon a rebellious world, and deciding the destiny of every human being for time and for eternity.
A VIEW ON THE BAROTSELAND MISSION FARM, PEMBA, NORTHWEST RHODESIA
The message proclaiming the hour of God’s judgment was to be given from its first announcement until Christ shall close his work in the heavenly sanctuary. This was a fact when William Miller and some three hundred other ministers first proclaimed it in this country. It was proclaimed also in the Old World. Of this there is the most abundant evidence. No reasonable, intelligent man can deny that such a general proclamation has been and is being made. The message was a true message, because it was founded on God’s Word. From Dan. 8:14 we learn the time when it should begin,—“Unto two thousand and three hundred days [years]; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed,”—and further data are given in Dan. 9:24-27. The cleansing of the typical sanctuary suggests a work of judgment. The cleansing of the sanctuary which the Lord pitched and not man—the antitypical sanctuary—is the great work of final judgment, and immediately precedes the close of human probation, and the coming of Jesus the second time without sin unto salvation.
That long period of twenty-three hundred year-days, as the explanation discloses, began in 457 B. C., at the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem, and ended in 1844 A. D. Figures can not lie. When we have the beginning, the starting-point, we can surely tell the time of ending. The very year that period ended, the world witnessed some of the most remarkable instances of the fulfilment of prophecy ever seen. The advent movement was world-wide in extent. From fifty thousand to one hundred thousand believers in this country, besides thousands in other lands, identified themselves with it. How did the masses of the leading churches receive this wonderful announcement?—Precisely as the Jewish church received John the Baptist’s announcement of the coming of the Saviour the first time. At first they were greatly stirred by it. Multitudes heard the message. Some received it with gladness, and were blessed thereby. But the great, the rich, those in high stations, the rulers, the religious teachers, and the masses generally, rejected the message. So it was in Noah’s time; and so has it ever been. Our age is no exception.
The second message followed. It is simply the statement of a great fact; namely, the consequences of the rejection of light,—a moral fall among the great Protestant denominations because they rejected the prophetic truths of the Bible concerning the second coming of Christ. The grand truths of prophecy, comprising probably one fourth of the great canon of Inspiration, have been set aside as of little value. The effect of this rejection of light is plainly to be seen everywhere. “The sure word of prophecy” was to be the guiding star through the murky darkness of the world. Hence, God’s Word having been rejected, we now see multitudes groping for light in modern fables of the world’s conversion, man’s natural immortality, Spiritualism, Christian Science, heathen conceptions, etc. O that blind eyes might be opened to see the true light! The second angel’s message will be a true message till Christ comes.
The third angel’s message, united with the two preceding ones, is now being proclaimed. This threefold message embraces the great platform of truth designed to prepare a people for the coming of Christ. It is a fearful, warning message, the most solemn in all the Bible, discarding every doctrine which originated in the papal apostasy, and calling for a return to the purity of apostolic teaching and the glorious truths of God’s Word and law. This is in substance the great reform of the last days, to prepare a people for the coming of Christ upon the white cloud to reap the harvest of the earth, to punish the wicked, and to gather the righteous to the garner of the Lord.8
This, dear brethren and sisters, is a very brief and feeble presentation of the work committed to us,—the proclamation of the last message of mercy to earth’s fifteen hundred million inhabitants. Do you believe this great fact? Can any of us doubt it? Thirteen great lines of prophecy proclaim that we are now in the very last days of probationary time. No great event of the past has had such a wealth of prophetic evidence to herald its near approach.
We have not space in this brief article to recapitulate Daniel’s great lines of prophecy, the beloved John’s Revelation, the prophetic words of Christ, and the declarations of many prophetic writers, all pointing down to our time, to this wonderful age of light and knowledge. God’s Word clearly pointed out that such an age would come. Everybody knows it has come. Inventions flood the world. The Bible, printed in hundreds of languages, opens up as never before its glorious truths to all who welcome the light. Missionary operations reach to every land.
Many conclude from these facts that the world is to be converted, that man is to become his own savior, and a far more glorious age is to dawn upon humanity. But God’s Word plainly declares that the coming of this age of light and knowledge positively indicates that the very last days have come, when probation will close forever. Christ declares that when this gospel of the kingdom shall have been preached in all the world, then shall the end come. When the signs he gave shall have been fulfilled, the very generation then living shall not pass away till all things be accomplished, and the Son of man come with power and great glory. In solemn, positive language he declares, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” He further declares that when the signs he foretold are fulfilled, his people may know that the kingdom is nigh, yes, even at the door.
Brethren and sisters, do you believe these words of Christ? Do you know his coming is near, even at the door? Or do you doubt Christ’s statements? These are solemn questions. The lives of some of us have spanned the whole period of these messages. We heard the glorious proclamation, “The hour of his judgment is come.” It was a wonderful, a glorious proclamation, and it stirred the world. We have seen the progress of blindness and darkness, so far as a knowledge of prophetic truth is concerned, like a pall of blackness overspread the churches. We have seen the terrible condition of unbelief into which they have fallen, as stated in the second angel’s message. Multitudes profess to be Christians who really are unbelievers in the inspiration of the Scriptures. This same skepticism permeates the educational institutions, from which men come to fill the pulpits of the churches. A fallen condition surely!
We have, thank God, lived to see the proclamation of the third angel’s message, the last of the series. We have welcomed its glorious light. We have been included among those of whom it is said, “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” We are waiting with the deepest interest to see the approach of the white cloud of angels with our glorious King, Christ Jesus, our Lord. We know it is time to watch for that event. We have for many, many years rejoiced in the benefits which have come to us in the presence among us of the testimony of Jesus, the spirit of prophecy. From the very dawn of this message, we have had this privilege, which the churches of eighteen centuries have not had, of being instructed by a special messenger of the Lord. Praise his holy name that this servant of the Lord is still with us, giving still the same precious help, encouragement, and light as in the past.
We witnessed the poverty, the weakness, the unpopularity, the heart-rending struggles, of the first pioneers in this work, as they brought out the hidden truths, the precious rays of light from the Word, constituting the present truth for this time. We saw the movement, too, when there were less than fifty true believers. O, what faith was that in those early days! Those pioneers struggled against mountains of difficulties we know little about, but they believed, yes, knew, that to be God’s truth, and the end to be very near. All the way along we have witnessed the constant growth of this movement. It has never retrograded. Most marvelous has been its growth, a gain of ten per cent a year in its progress, doubling in numbers and strength in every decade until the present time.
The truth now is reaching out to nearly every land and every clime. It is safe to say that there is not another religious denomination to-day which is making such rapid, continuous growth as are Seventh-day Adventists. Yet there is none so despised in the eyes of the churches and of the world. We hold truths, which, like the seventh-day Sabbath, are unpopular, and even greatly hated by many. Still our work is onward and upward, moving irresistibly forward. This is God’s work, or such results, considering all the circumstances and conditions, could never be seen.
The truths we teach are of Bible origin, heavenly and soul-inspiring. Christian temperance is taught and practised by our people as by no other denomination in the world.
Our work is onward. We are a united people. We thank God for the cross which is in this truth. It is a great blessing; it elevates and ennobles. The cross always goes with the crown; it is Christ’s emblem.
Do all who join us remain with us?—O, no. All the way along there have been some who dropped out of our ranks. This discourages some. But so it was at Christ’s first advent. Multitudes heard and followed him a while, and then left him. The way was too hard for them. Human nature is weak. But those who “endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.” We have reached the stage when the old ship Zion is coming into port. What would we think should a passenger from Europe to America jump off at Sandy Hook, in discouragement at the length of the voyage? His folly would be nothing compared to that of those who now leave the old ship Zion as she is entering port. “Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. . . . For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.”
