Clearing the Pathway by L. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Apr 20, 1905

Clearing the Pathway

By L. A. S.

ALL the world is talking about what is happening to Russia, but the real significance of what is taking place in that quarter of the world, and in Russian territory in the far East, is not generally comprehended. It is not set forth in any of the newspaper dispatches or editorials. It should be understood, however, by those who know that present-day events throughout the world are all leading up to that impending greatest of all events—the “glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.”

Under the blows struck by Japan’s armies, the Russian military power in the far East is breaking up; and under the steady working of the revolutionary spirit, the autocracy at St. Petersburg is shaken to its foundations, and threatened with actual overthrow. All this greatly weakens the system of government under which the name of Russia has been almost a synonym for civil and religious despotism.

The world sees all this, but there is a reason why these things are taking place to-day which the world does not understand. God is bringing about a new order of things in Russia, under which there will be greater religious freedom, that the last gospel message to the world may more swiftly go to the people of that country. All things are in readiness for the final rapid march of the third angel’s message throughout the world’s unentered fields, and there is no power that can stay such a shaping of events in those fields as will open the doors which God wants opened to the messengers of his truth.

If we look over the record of world events during the time that the last warning message has been spreading abroad in the earth, we shall find many evidences that the hand of God has been shaping history in this time for the rapid evangelization of the world. In many lands we see the opening of doors long closed. In South America the hold of Rome has been loosened until even in Ecuador the gospel messenger can do his work with comparative freedom. The same thing is true of Cuba and the Philippines. It was not long ago that Rome held political control in these lands, and papal bigotry and intolerance barred the way of the gospel message.

Dull, indeed, are our ears to-day if we can not hear the sounding of the trumpet of God’s preparation. We look out over the world-wide field from a far higher standpoint than that of the mere news gatherer or politician, one that reveals to us far more important truths than are discernible from the worldling’s point of view. To us, the unfolding of events should be a continual reminder that—

“We are living, we are dwelling, In a grand, and awful time.”

It is a day of great things, greater perhaps than the world has seen in any previous time, but the hand of God is clearing a pathway in all the earth for his final message to mankind, and to that work everything else in the earth is made secondary. Everything in the world, and indeed “everything in the universe” now calls upon those entrusted with this final message of truth to make everything in their own lives secondary to its proclamation in all lands, for a witness unto all nations, that the last obstacle to the coming of Christ’s kingdom may be removed.

L. A. S.