A Sad Prayer-Meeting

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 9, 1871

A Sad Prayer-Meeting.

THE prayer-meeting here referred to has not yet been held. The account of it may be found in the sixth chapter of Revelation: “And they said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.” This is the prayer that will be offered.

And there will be a great multitude at that meeting. Many prayer-meetings are very thin. Few are present. Not so the one before us; millions will be there. Distinguished persons will be present; those who usually have little or nothing to do with prayer-meetings. But they will come to this meeting. We have express mention of this, “And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the mighty men, said, Fall on us” &c. They may never have been in a meeting where there was prayer before. But they cannot stay away from this.

There will be great emotion in that prayer-meeting. It will not be dull, and drowsy, and formal. There will be the deepest feeling. Men must have the most terrible emotions when they are led to ask the rocks and mountains to fall on them. There will be no stupidity in that meeting.

They will all pray. Some prayer-meetings have but two or three that take part in them. Not so of this meeting. Not only the great men shall pray, but “every bondman and every freeman.” All will pray. And what a prayer! They so ill-treated the blessed God here that they now despair of any mercy. Hence the dreadful prayer before us: “Hide us from the face of him who sitteth on the throne.” All who persist in treating Christ unworthily are on the way to this meeting. They restrain prayer now, but they will pray at this meeting.

Reader, if you have little to do with prayer in this world—if no domestic or secret altar is fragrant with the incense of your supplications, you are certainly on your way to this meeting. If you do not pray here, you assuredly will pray there.

Be persuaded to avoid that meeting. There will be enough there without you. Let the blessed duty of prayer be your joy here from day to day. Love it. Watch in it. Persevere in it. In faith and humility carry it on. Let nothing but death stop you. Then, while others pray for the rocks and mountains to hide them from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, you will sing, “Worthy is the Lamb that has redeemed me unto God by his blood.”