The Message of Preparation
THE Maine camp-meeting was held in the suburbs of Lewiston, and good reports were printed in the Lewiston Journal, a leading daily paper of the State. The editor of the REVIEW, who attended this meeting, spoke one evening on The Message of Preparation for the Advent of Our Lord, and the following outline of the discourse was printed in the next day’s issue of the Journal:— “This is the day of God’s preparation, and the time has come to make ready a people who shall be able to stand when our Lord shall appear in glory. “As a message was sent to the world before the first advent ‘to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for him,’ so in this generation a message is being proclaimed to the world which both gives warning that ‘the great day of the Lord is near’ and prepares a people to meet the coming Saviour in peace. “John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus at the first advent. Concerning him his father Zacharias prophesied: ‘Thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to make ready his ways; to give knowledge of salvation unto his people in the remission of their sins.’ And when he came, he ‘preached the baptism of repentance unto the remission of sins.’ In doing this he was fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah, as he himself declared in these words: ‘I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said Isaiah the prophet.’ “To prepare the way of the Lord is therefore to lead the people to confess and forsake sin, and to point out the way of salvation from sin. It means to accept of the gospel of Christ as given in the Scriptures, and to bring forth the fruits of it in a godly life. “God’s message to the last generation is therefore a message of reform based upon his word and faith in the work of Christ in behalf of sinners. “That there is a demand for such a message is evident when we consider how evil is on the increase, and how the Scriptures and the atoning work of Christ are being superseded by human philosophy and various methods of self-salvation. “The so-called ‘new theology’ is robbing the world of the Christ of the Scriptures, and is undermining faith in God’s provision for saving from sin. There has been such a modern apostasy from the simple gospel as preached by Luther and his associates in the Reformation of the sixteenth century that Dr. Charles A. Briggs, of New York City, has recently declared that ‘the common doctrine of the present Protestant theologians would not be recognized by any of the Reformers.’ “This certainly marks a great falling away from ‘the faith which was once delivered unto the saints,’ and indicates the need of some movement which shall maintain the original Biblical platform of Christianity. Such a movement has arisen in this generation, and is represented by the people who are holding this camp-meeting. It is a fulfilment of the prophecies which designate the special features of the gospel teaching which will be needed to meet the demands of the time. “These prophecies are so explicit in their delineation of the last days, and foretell the signs of the Saviour’s coming with such exactness that we may know when ‘he is near, even at the doors,’ although ‘of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven.’ As both John the Baptist and Jesus announced that ‘the kingdom of heaven is at hand,’ so in this time we may declare that ‘the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe in the gospel.’ “This is ‘the everlasting gospel’ of salvation through faith in Christ, but it includes now faith in the coming Christ, and it means such a fulness of deliverance from sin as will prepare for translation from earth to heaven without seeing death. This complete gospel calls for the repudiation of traditions and creeds, and all practises based upon them, and a return to apostolic faith and practise. It exalts the law of God, not as a means of salvation, but as a witness to the quality of that righteousness4by faith which is the central truth of the gospel. And this gospel of the coming Saviour is the message of preparation for the second advent of our Lord.”