Greater Success to Attend Our Efforts
By Daniel T. Bourdeau
WONDERFUL success is sure to attend the efforts of those who, under the reviving influences of the latter rain, an emblem of the Holy Spirit, shall earnestly contribute to the advancement of the final gospel work on earth; for it is predicted of them that “they shall increase as they have increased.” Zech. 10:8 compared with Zech. 10:1; 9:15, etc. Here a comparison is instituted by bringing into requisition the future and past tenses, coupled with the idea of an increase with regard to those concerned. Those referred to, true Christians, “shall increase as they have increased.” They once increased so rapidly that three thousand were added to them in one day. Acts 2. This will be repeated in the near future, when God shall bestow upon the remnant church an extraordinary effusion of his Holy Spirit. But before this is realized, a proper answer must be returned to the following question:—Why is it that though the signs of Christ’s soon coming are so striking, and we are so near the close of probation, it is a sad fact that, at least in our home field, our numbers being taken into account, there are, notwithstanding our increased facilities and the encouragement held out to our laborers on the point of support, etc., fewer new companies and churches raised by our workers and the rank and file of our people than there used to be in the earlier history of this movement which God himself, through his prophetic word, has called us to advance in the earth? Is this due simply to the fact that men’s hearts are becoming more hardened as we draw near the end? It is hardly logical to attribute this difference merely to such a cause. Surely our increased facilities, the fact that our laborers are now, as a rule, liberally sustained, so that they can devote all their energies to the special work of their calling, together with the encouraging fact that a greater measure of God’s Spirit is now offered us in this favored period of the latter rain, are sufficient fully to remove the sad difference that now confronts us and saddens every true believer in present truth. There must, therefore, be some causes besides an increased hardness of hearts for the painful difference referred to. Taking a retrospective view of the early believers in present truth, we see that to receive and obey the message that made them a peculiar people, they had to come to the point of giving up all for Christ. Their acceptance of the message exposed them to reproaches, cruel mockings, and bitter persecution. In this respect, their position answered to that of those who received the Saviour and the message he proclaimed at his first advent. As a general thing, they were a consecrated people. They loved one another, and could lay down their lives for those of like precious faith, and for the cause of their Master. Is this true of the majority of our people to-day? In those days God’s people were plain in their attire, and simple and natural in their worship, and did not imitate the vain fashions of Babylon, nor manifest pharisaic exactitude in following set rules in their worship, in imitation of the example of backslidden professors of Christianity around them. They did not in those days attach more importance to external popular forms than to inward piety and practical godliness. Can this be truthfully said at the present time of most of those who profess faith in the great prophetic message for our times? No such state of things existed among us in the early days of the remnant church.10Then the believers attached importance to ways and customs that were sensible, but they suppressed even the desire for vain show, and for popularity from the standpoint of the world and worldly professors of Christianity. In those early times believers did not run after vain, worldly pleasures and amusements, but considered that the greatest earthly enjoyment was that experienced in the service and worship of God, in loving God and their brethren. Then believers, whether ministers or laymen, did not seek popularity; for they were convinced that to do so would be to deny the cross of Christ, by which the world is crucified unto us, and we unto the world (Gal. 6:14), and that without the true cross of Christ seen both in theory and in the life, there can be no dying to self, no separation from the world and from fallen Christians, no genuine conversion, and no advancement in true sanctification. The message for our times can never be made popular. If it were made so, it would be perverted, and would cease to be what it now is, a converting and sanctifying message, a message that is in every respect fitted to prepare a people for the perils of the last days, and to meet the Lord blameless and in peace at his coming. It was in this light that our pioneers viewed this message. And those ministers among us who have taken a different view of this subject, who have been afraid to put the threefold message of Revelation 14 at the front, have refrained from bearing a plain testimony in harmony with this message, and have tried to make present truth popular, and to please their hearers, to receive praise from them, as do the popular preachers of our day, have either apostatized from the truth or have seen their error and reformed in their way of proclaiming present truth. And those who have pursued this course have been encouraged in seeing souls converted to the Lord. If the naked truths of the threefold message of Revelation 14, backed up by the Spirit of God, and delivered with the earnestness and power that attended the ministry of the early disciples, and which attended that of the first ministers who bore the second-advent message to their fellow beings, will not convert souls, what will? In the early history of this cause, a spirit of rivalry, and wire working for position and office and greater wages, was rarely manifested by our laborers. Each believer, whether minister or lay member, rejoiced as much in the prosperity of his brethren and sisters as he did in his own prosperity; and simply because each believer loved his fellow believer as he did himself. In those days the highest ambition of believers was to communicate present truth to others, and see them embrace it. The highest ambition of ministers then was to see souls saved from the power and bondage of sin, and made free in Christ Jesus. They kept the near coming of Christ in view, and their agonizing prayer was, “Give me souls as the seal of my ministry, or I die. Give me the power of love and of thy Spirit, with which to win souls to Christ. Deny me what thou wilt, and let me endure any hardship and suffer any self-denial; but grant me souls saved from the thraldom of sin as the greatest earthly reward for my labors.” And God heard such prayers, and souls were converted to God and to his truth. The people partook of the spirit of the ministers, and did all in their power to remove every obstacle they had placed in the way of souls embracing the message. Nearly forty-four years ago our lamented brother, Elder C. W. Sperry, and the writer were visiting the few scattered believers and churches of believers in New England, and lecturing at different places in the Eastern States. We stopped at one place where there was a small company of our people, and began lecturing to unbelievers. The interest was good, but as we encouraged our hearers to take their stand in favor of the truth, we saw that there was something that kept them from responding. At the close of one lecture, we took the few believers aside, and told them that it was our conviction that there was something either in their relation with one another or with their neighbors that clogged the work. This we said without having been told a thing about their condition; and we told them we did not want to know about the cause of the drawback, unless it was absolutely necessary, because it was much better in every way for them to settle such matters themselves, if possible. We told them we would suspend our meetings for two nights to give them an opportunity for self-examination and to see that all was right between them, and that there was no difficulty existing between them and their neighbors. The third night we resumed our effort, and eleven noble souls decided to obey the truth. And may it not be true to-day that the scrutinizing eye of Him who can not err, does now discern that not a few companies and churches of our people are in a condition similar to that which hindered the work in the case referred to, and that if a course was pursued similar to the one recommended and followed in this instance, glorious results would be seen in the conversion of many souls to God and his truth? How can holy angels and the Spirit of God urge souls to join with those who, instead of being nursing fathers and mothers to them, would, by their inconsistent course and unconsecrated lives, lead them to turn away from the truth and from the sanctifying work for these times? May God thoroughly purge his people by the close and testing message to the Laodiceans, and by a proper application of church discipline, that the work of the Lord may advance more rapidly in the earth. There is no reason why our ministers and workers, receiving the reasonable compensation that is now granted them, should not, with a consecrated and sacrificing church to stand by them, go forward, giving their whole strength to the special work of their calling, and showing to both believers and unbelievers that they really believe Christ is soon coming, and consequently act like pilgrims traveling to a better country, in transferring their treasures to heaven, instead of giving a lie to their profession by laying up treasures on earth to be swept away by God’s judgments in the forthcoming day of wrath. More than a third of a century ago two of our ministers went to a distant field, and started an important mission largely at their own expense. Good counsel soon came to them from two very different sources. One came from Elder James White, and was expressed in these terms: “Brethren, work in God, work through God, and have no separate interest to divert your minds from the great object for which you have gone to that field,—that of raising church after church and seeing them established in the truth.” The other counsel came from an infidel, and was expressed in these terms: “I see that you make the old Book look pretty straight and consistent. Work like beavers, and you will succeed.” All know how beavers work. They cut down trees with their teeth, use them and mud in making dams to gather fishes at one point, catch them, and feast upon them. The two ministers heeded these counsels, held five hundred meetings a year, besides selling hundreds of dollars’ worth of our literature and laboring much from heart to heart in families; and in eighteen months the mission was declared self-sustaining. Both of the ministers referred to are alive to-day. Their hard work did not kill them; and their highest ambition now is to continue laboring for the advancement of this the best of causes. May God restore to us the old-fashioned second-advent faith, consecration, earnestness, undying love for perishing men, methods of labor, and spirit of sacrifice, to which was due the success of our pioneers and early believers in winning souls to Christ and to present truth. We have everything to encourage us in this glorious period of the latter rain. Signs of rain are visible in the spiritual heavens. There is seen and heard a moving in the top of the mulberry trees, and many are now enjoying the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Let us fully clear up the King’s highway, that he may come in with all his fulness, and work for us and through us. Thus may his work be cut short in righteousness. May God help us fully to prepare the way for the reception of his Holy Spirit “without measure.” This his great heart of love and mercy is more than willing to grant unto us, with all the gifts and efficacy of the Representative of God the Father and God the Son, for the finishing up of the gospel work of salvation in the earth.