A WORKER in this message writes that he has been “deeply stirred” by recent articles in the REVIEW dealing with our present situation, and asks whether the time has “fully come to sound aloud the message of Rev. 18: 1-4 in connection with the first, second, and third angels’ messages of Revelation 14.” An arbitrary reply to this question, a mere statement of human opinion, would be of no value to any one. Let us look again at some of those developments in recent history which will help us to understand the time. The rejection of the first angel’s message by the churches generally, the refusal to listen to the proclamation of the immediate, visible coming of our Lord, led to the giving of the second angel’s message in the summer of 1844. This experience is clearly described by Elder J. N. Loughborough in his book, “Rise and Progress of Seventh-day Adventists,” in the following paragraph:— In 1844 there was connected with the proclamation of the “midnight cry” just such a message as that of the second angel of Revelation 14. By it was set forth the fact that those who were taking the mere opinions of men in place of the plain statements of God’s Word, were following, thus far, in the steps of the mother church of Rome, and were in danger of placing themselves where the day of the Lord would finally overtake them “as a thief in the night.” The nominal churches were told that in thus setting aside the word of the Lord to establish their own opinions and creeds, they were like the papal church in taking “the Bible as explained by tradition,”—by the customs, sayings, and practices of the fathers, popes, and cardinals,—which was a direct departure from the Protestant’s rule of taking “the Bible and the Bible alone as the standard of faith.”
Elder J. V. Himes, in a letter dated Aug. 29, 1844, quoted by Elder Loughborough, says:— It was not until “divers were hardened” and “spake evil of that way” [the Lord’s coming] before the multitude, that our brethren were moved to come out and separate from the churches. They could not endure this “evil speaking” of the “evil servants.” And the churches that could pursue the course of oppression and “evil speaking” toward those who were looking for the “blessed hope,” were to them none other than the daughters of the mystic Babylon. They so proclaimed them, and came into the liberty of the gospel.
The attitude assumed by the churches toward this advent message at that time has never been changed. The warning which came to them as the word of the Lord was rejected in favor of the opinions and traditions of men. This was a deliberate setting aside of a fundamental principle of Protestantism, and by the rejection of the authority of the Scriptures the door was opened for the entrance of many and grievous errors.4 Here are some of the steps, as given by an advocate of the New Theology, which have led to open infidelity:— First came geology, with its message that the world was not made in six days. The church replied, Six days does not mean six days; it means six long periods. Then came anthropology, with its message that man was not created six thousand years ago; but that he has been on the earth at least ten or fifteen or twenty thousand years. The church replied, The Bible is not authority on matters of chronology. Then came evolutionary science, with its message that man was not made perfect; he has been developed gradually, like all other animals, from a germ. And then the church replied—Nothing. Then followed literary criticism. . . . Then came the study of comparative religions. . . . Little by little the Protestant faith that the Bible is the supreme and final authority was weakened, and for some destroyed. These attacks upon the foundations of Christianity were resisted with some show of earnestness for a time, but the step taken in 1844 prepared the way for all that followed, and those who had accepted human opinion in place of the word of God at that time could not successfully withstand the logical development of this course in later years. And so it has gone on step by step, until the following announcement of the overthrow of the old faith has been made, and has been allowed to pass unchallenged:— Liberty to think and teach in the terms of the New Theology, and to interpret the Bible in the terms of the new criticism, is no longer denied in the Protestant churches.
The exercise of this “liberty” on the part of those who have already been claiming it has brought the following results:— A pantheistic god, instead of a personal God. A human savior, instead of a divine Saviour. Infallible scholarship, instead of an infallible Bible. “Modern thought,” instead of a “Thus saith the Lord.” A development of religious ideas from the human mind, instead of a revelation from God. The natural in all things, the supernatural in nothing. Reformation, instead of regeneration. Culture, instead of conversion. A change of environment, instead of a change of heart. The energy of the flesh, instead of prayer and faith. Interest in the secular, instead of zeal for religion. Nobody afraid of hell, and nobody caring much about heaven. Everybody coming out right anyhow, and nobody on the wrong track except those who cling to the faith once delivered to the saints. It appears to us that the situation thus described indicates another turning-point in the history of this fall of Babylon, and calls for the giving of the message of Rev. 18: 1-5, in which “the message of the fall of Babylon, as given by the second angel, is repeated, with the additional mention of the corruptions which have been entering the churches since 1844.” We do not say that this modern infidelity has reached its full development, but when the Bible ceases to be “an ultimate and supreme authority,” and the God of the Bible is repudiated in favor of “an Inscrutable Existence,” “The Infinite and Eternal Energy,” and the ten commandments are declared to be entirely unsuited to the needs of modern religious life, what is left to Protestant Christianity? Is it not time that the message of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus should do an aggressive and powerful work in calling out of the fallen churches those who tremble at the word of the Lord? The great body of the nominally Christian church will never come back, as a whole, to the original platform of Protestantism. Only those individuals who listen to the call, “Come out of her,” and who accept God’s final message of warning to the world will be able to stand in the crisis which is just before us. “Is the time fully come to sound aloud the message of Rev. 18: 1-4 in connection with the first, second, and third angels of Revelation 14?” Let the facts answer.