Elijah a Type of the Remnant Church by GEO. O. STATES

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Feb 25, 1915

Elijah a Type of the Remnant Church

By GEO. O. STATES

GEO. O. STATES

I HAVE thought much of the experience of Elijah, and have received much encouragement in reading of the trials of this man of God. The Lord’s professed people had forsaken the true God and gone into idolatry until but few remained loyal to God. Elijah saw that through worldly influences the Lord’s people were fast departing from the true God, and earnestly prayed that the judgments of God might come upon them in order to save them from total apostasy. The Lord heard the prayer of his servant, and the rain was withheld. In the years of famine which followed, God’s servant had to trust implicitly in the true God. No worldly powers would or could give him any aid.

In the closing of the third angel’s message God’s people will be forced by the conditions surrounding them to cut loose from every worldly association and trust in the Lord, and in him alone, as fully as did Elijah.

As verily as Elijah came to a place where the ravens brought him bread and flesh, as verily as the barrel of meal and the cruse of oil did not fail, so will it be in the time of trouble. “I saw the saints leaving the cities and villages, and associating together in companies, and living in the most solitary places. Angels provided them with food and water, while the wicked were suffering from hunger and thirst. Then I saw the leading men of earth consulting together, and Satan and his angels busy around them. I saw a writing, copies of which were scattered in different parts of the land, giving orders that unless the saints should yield their peculiar faith, give up the Sabbath, and observe the first day of the week, the people were at liberty, after a certain time, to put them to death.”—“Early Writings,” pages 282, 283. As God provided for his servant, so will he provide for the remnant people.

Those who have watched the trend of the churches and of the various worldly organizations can see that we are fast coming to the time when Protestantism, Spiritualism, and Catholicism will unite in enforcing the mark of the beast. Those who have observed the growth of Spiritualism

can readily see that “Spiritualism is now changing its form, and, veiling its more objectionable features, is assuming a Christian guise.” I can see the developing of the very condition for which we have looked for so many years—the uniting of all the powers of earth to persecute the remnant church. As we enter the time of trouble, the blame for the terrible conditions that come upon the world will be laid upon God’s people; but as God protected Elijah, so will he surround his people with heavenly angels, and preserve them from evil.

Cedaredge, Colo.