Such a Time as This by William Ambrose Spicer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 31, 1907

“Such a Time as This”

By William Ambrose Spicer

THERE was never such a call sounding from all the world as that which comes to this people to devote their resources to the work of God. Just review the facts of the situation.

The Lord has prepared the way for the warning message of the judgment-hour to be carried to all the world; and to Seventh-day Adventists has been committed the work.

The winds of strife that might easily fill the whole world with the tumult of war are being held, in order that this sealing message of Sabbath reform may be carried to the nations. As the angels hold these winds in check, they must certainly look toward this people to rise in the might of God and hasten on with the message.

Barriers have been removed before this final advent movement as truly as the river gates of brass were opened to let the Persians into Babylon. More than a century before Cyrus marched against the city, the word of prophecy had declared that the way would be opened before his invading army. Just so the sure word has declared, and God’s providence has been demonstrating, that the way into all the earth is to be made plain to the people commissioned to bear the last gospel message.

The psalmist calls: “O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men! For he hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder.” That is still being done.

The Lord began from afar to prepare for this time. The world was being found out by traders and adventurers. Captain Cook found his way through the Straits of Magellan and into the cannibal world of the South Seas. It was not so long ago but that the tree still stands under which he addressed the people of the Tonga Islands. The story of his voyages added fuel to the flame of missionary interest, kindling in Carey’s heart in Leicester. The shoemaker-preacher declared for the gospel to all the world, and a devoted little band opened the century of missions to the accompaniment of scoffs and ridicule from those who thought the idea absurd. God was breaking the brazen gates of indifference.

In 1796 a proposal in the Scottish Church Assembly to evangelize the heathen was met by the resolution:—

To spread abroad the knowledge of the gospel among barbarous and heathen nations seems to be highly preposterous, in so far as philosophy and learning must in the nature of things take the precedence, and that while there remains at home a single individual without the means of religious knowledge, to propagate it abroad would be improper and absurd.

As the resolution was presented, old Dr. Erskine cried out to the moderator, “Rax me that Bible,” and he read the great commission, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” The discussion of this proposition and the agitation that followed aroused Scotland. The iron bars that held back the Protestant churches from the highway of missionary achievement were being cut asunder.

In 1792 the Baptist Missionary Society was started. In 1795 the Congregationalist bodies formed the London Missionary Society. The Church of England founded its society in 1799. And in 1800 the first German missionary training-school was established. As Professor Warneck says, “This was the beginning of the missionary age.” And this was the very “time of the end” of Daniel’s prophecy, when the prophetic book was to be unsealed, and knowledge to be increased.

From that day on the barriers that shut the nations of the world away from the coming light have been removing. Up to fifty years ago, as the advent message was rising, vast changes had taken place; but in the last fifty years, God’s hand has indeed swept away gates of brass, and cut asunder iron bars. A recent writer has said:—

The problem is no longer “the open door.” The doors are wide open in every land. With the exception of Tibet, Afghanistan, and the Belgian Kongo State, there is not a country in which the delivery of the gospel message is not merely feasible, but a constant fact. It is not the securing of an audience. It is indeed no more true to-day than it has ever been, that the great masses of Asia and Africa are hungering and thirsting for Christianity. Yet nowhere is it difficult to gather a company of those willing to hear, while many, everywhere, are eager to know of Christ. The great problem of to-day is the securing of the funds needed to enter these open doors.

In over four hundred languages the Word of God is speaking to-day. One Bible Society alone, the British, has nine hundred thirty agents in all the world. And of course the vast number of missionaries are all scattering the seed of the word in highways and byways.

It means that the last message is to go quickly, and the end is near at hand. With such a mighty impetus in the development of the cause of God in missions, gathering and increasing for a century and more, aiming at the finishing of the work in this time, no indifference or unbelief of individuals can halt the

work. It is to be done, and done now. We have come to the knowledge of the kingdom for just such a time as this. To fail now to stand in the line of duty is to fail indeed. To believe this truth to-day means to be praying and working and giving to send the third angel’s message into every unentered field.

W. A. S.