The Primitive Hope by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 10, 1907

The Primitive Hope

By W. A. S.

THE tendency in every denomination, as it has grown in numbers, has been to depart from the primitive simplicity and fervor. What is to keep this growing denomination from the same tendency?

The answer is plain. The primitive hope, the hope that means all there is to this message, is the thing that will maintain the primitive simplicity and love and devotion.

That hope is the hope of soon seeing Jesus coming in the clouds of heaven. It transforms the life of the man who has it, and shapes all his business and every plan of life.

“Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.”

“This hope,” made us a people. It is “this hope” that has given vitality to the message. And, thank God, “this hope” is founded in the sure and unfailing promise of the Lord Jesus. It grows brighter with the passing of the years. He is coming. Just as surely as the sun will rise to-morrow morning, Jesus will come according to his promise.

Be of good cheer, brother. The hope of those who have believed the advent message is to be fulfilled. Though the vision seem to tarry, the Lord declares that “it will surely come, it will not tarry.” Let us see to it that this hope is kept a living experience in the daily life. When, in 1844, the believers expected actually to meet Jesus as he came in glory, it led them to a putting away of sin, a surrendering to God, and a devotion that shut out all the world’s distractions. How it stirs our hearts when those who lived in the days of the ’44 movement tell of the power of that hope.

It was the all-absorbing reality in the minds of those who thought the expiration of the twenty-three-hundred-year period meant the appearing of Christ. A sister in New York told me how her father, on that tenth day of the seventh month, with his little family gathered about him, watched to see the cloud appearing and the heavens open. As a cloud appeared, shining with unwonted brightness, the father clapped his hands for joy, crying, “Bless the Lord, our Saviour is coming.”

There was a decided preparation in that home to meet Jesus. We need the same preparation of heart, for soon we are actually to meet the Saviour.

There is a mighty work to be done. The warning message is to be borne to all the world. We need the same experience to fit us to carry it that we shall need in order to be ready to meet Jesus. And surely none can be ready to meet Jesus who do not join in the work of carrying the message to the world just as whole-heartedly as they expect later to join in the triumph of the cause of truth when Christ shall come.

This means every resource of time and means and talent devoted to God. It means that every one who has the hope will be living and doing business for the one thing, to send this message to the world and to be ready to meet the Lord. Nothing else matters.

The things we can not understand will all be plain then. There is present comfort in all our trials and troubles, and then that glad day shall forever wipe away all tears and heal all sorrows. Let every one challenge himself with the question, Do I really want the Lord Jesus to come quickly? Then, if the hope is faint, seek the Lord for such a conversion of heart that the soul will continually cry out that last prayer of the Bible, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” Rev. 22:20.

“We know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” 1 John 3:2, 3.

W. A. S.