(Reading for Thursday, December 18)
By W. T. Knox
The Response of the People to the Increasing Demands of the Work
“Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.” Joshua 1:2, 3. For forty years Israel had been wandering in the wilderness, although it was but an eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of Mt. Seir to Kadesh-barnea. These forty years were years filled with instruction from God, that they might be made acquainted with him, concerning whom they had well-nigh lost knowledge during the years of their Egyptian bondage. They had been years abounding in marvelous manifestations of the Lord’s power and tender mercy and love. “In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.” Isa. 63:9. And, alas! notwithstanding all this, these years contained too full a record of their blindness and stubbornness, their murmuring and rebellion. Time and again the dark apostasies of the tribes stirred the jealousy of Moses and the anger of God. “But they rebelled, and vexed his Holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.” Isa. 63:10. He led them to the very borders of the promised land, and permitted them to look upon its beauties and riches, but they turned back and entered upon one of their most serious apostasies and rebellions. As a result, God condemned them to forty years of wandering, until they should all perish in the wilderness. Once again the hosts of Israel are led by the fiery, cloudy pillar to the borders of the promised land, and there, in the valley of Shittim, as the result of their final and most flagrant apostasy, the last of the original host that were led out of Egypt were stricken by the plague. And Moses, who notwithstanding all their murmuring and complaining was, under God, always their faithful and patient leader, was, after viewing the beauty of the promised land and the final triumph and glory of his people, laid away upon lonely Mt. Nebo because of the one transgression into which he had been led by their sin. To Joshua now comes the command from Heaven. “Arise, go over this Jordan.” The Jordan was overflowing in its floods. The cities were more strongly fortified than in the days of the twelve spies, and the giants were as tall and great as then. The ancient leaders of the people were dead, and the veterans of the host had perished, and their bones were whitening in the wilderness. But Joshua had heard the command, “Arise, and go over this Jordan,” and the promise, “Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you.” Not waiting to question how, Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying, “Pass through the host, and command the people, saying, Prepare you victuals; for within three days ye shall pass over this Jordan, to go in to possess the land, which the Lord your God giveth you to possess it.” Israel and their leader might have hesitated and questioned the possibilities of the flood-hardened Jordan or the towering walls of Jericho that opposed their progress, but these obstacles had no terrors for them, or, if they had, the command and the promise of God far outweighed them; for, leaving their wives, their children, and all their possessions in the hand of God, we hear the men of Israel answering Joshua: “All that thou commandest us we will do, and whithersoever thou sendest us, we will go.” Before obedience and faith, Jordan became a dry path for their feet, and the city Jericho a terrorized prey. When they began their pilgrimage, they trembled for their flocks, fearing that the Lord would not be able to set them a table in the wilderness. They feared for their lives and for the lives of their wives and little ones, accusing Moses of bringing them into the wilderness to perish. But they had finally come to the place where they were willing to leave their families and possessions with the Lord, and to daily eat the bread of faith. And so an abundant entrance was given them into the land of promise, and that which was faith became sight. The manna ceased, and “they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan.” For almost seventy years God has been leading this people through the wilderness18of sin toward the promised land. Who can question but that his mercies and his loving-kindnesses to us have been as great as those bestowed upon Israel of old? that the revelations of his will have been as clear and distinct to us as to them? As we review the history of modern Israel, we cannot fail to see that at times we have been brought to the very border of the heavenly Canaan, and that lack of faith and of godliness has repeatedly turned us back into the wilderness. It has been his purpose, through us, to reveal to the world his righteous statutes and judgments, and his saving message of grace. To us has been given the “everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying, . . . Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” Rev. 14: 6, 7. To take a people that were not a people, that were enfeebled and debased by generations of cruel servitude, to free them from their bondage, and establish them in a land occupied by strong, warlike, and progressive nations, was a miracle, an accomplishment to be wondered at. It was effected by that people’s yielding themselves wholly to God and permitting him to work for them,—a work of entire consecration and surrender. It is no less a miracle for the Lord to take a few men and women, poor in this world’s goods, distinguished only by a truth that makes them peculiar by its requirements, and of necessity largely separates them from the busy activities and ambitions of the world, and by them place this same truth among every nation and people of the earth, to establish in strategic locations institutions of learning, publishing houses, and sanitariums, and by them, in conjunction with these facilities, prepare the world for the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, and gather “a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; . . . holy and without blemish.” Eph. 5:27. Both instances are miracles of God’s grace. The early struggles of this people, their privations, self-denials, and patient efforts to establish the truth in America, have passed into the history of the church, and contain many striking instances of God’s overruling power and fostering care. Their early efforts to carry the message to other peoples and nations, and the providences of God that made this possible, are of too recent occurrence to be forgotten. It is only in recent years that the work in foreign lands has been inaugurated. Our real efforts among the heathen have been confined to the past quarter of a century. As the magnitude of the work has opened before our minds, and we have contemplated the meagerness of our facilities, our own weakness, the shortness of time, our hearts have repeatedly failed, and we have realized that the task is beyond us. But, thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, our Leader is the same who led Israel out of Egypt, spread for them a table in the wilderness, showed them his statutes and judgments, and revealed unto them his way, so that through faith they “subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.” Heb. 11:33, 34. Without depreciating the task before us, nor the great difficulties that attach to the gathering out of a people of God from the darkness and superstition of heathenism, we cannot but rejoice as we contemplate the wonders God has wrought for us. Beginning in weakness, without friends or influence, without even the semblance of a treasury to finance the work, there was laid upon the founders of this movement the stupendous task of sending this gospel of the kingdom to all nations of the earth in this generation, in order that a people might be prepared for the coming of the Lord. They saw that for this work they must have certain facilities,—schools in which to train workers, publishing houses to prepare gospel literature, sanitariums for the dissemination of right principles, the development of special workers, and the care of the sick. Though without funds, they, early in our history, began to follow the leadings of the Lord in these things. Their first efforts were, of necessity, in great weakness. In the year 1849 the first attempt was made to publish a paper, the Present Truth. Three years later a small printing plant was established in Rochester, N. Y., with an investment of less than seven hundred dollars. In 1866 our first health institution was established in Battle Creek, with an investment of from twenty to twenty-five thousand dollars. The educational work of the denomination was also begun with a small school in Battle Creek, the Battle Creek College being established in 1876. From this small beginning, under the fostering care of God, the institutional work has expanded until we have twenty-nine publishing houses, with assets to the amount of $1,600,000, producing gospel literature in seventy-five languages, the value of their annual product being in the neighborhood of $2,000,000, or considerably in excess of their entire investment. These printed pages of soul-saving literature are receiving, by the hands of our 2,000 colporteurs, a world-wide circulation, creating in all lands urgent demands for the living preacher. The denomination is operating forty sanitariums, with an investment represented by $2,900,000 assets, augmented by twenty-nine privately owned institutions, with $1,250,000 assets. From 25,000 to 30,000 patients are yearly cared for in these sanitariums, and thus brought in contact with the 2,000 workers in them who have given their lives to the dissemination of the truth. The educational work shows even greater development. Ninety colleges, academies, and intermediate schools are operated, valued at $2,230,000, having an enrolment of over 8,200 students, while our primary schools are attended by 15,600. These three classes of institutions, operating in their three separate spheres, but all educational in character, have made it possible for the denomination to recruit an army of men and women 9,500 strong, who are carrying heaven’s last message of warning to the world, spreading it in printed form in seventy-five languages, and orally in ninety-one tongues. A most remarkable feature brought out in these figures is that of the entire membership of the denomination, one twelfth are actively engaged in this work. We may have confidence that this volume of work will be maintained, from the fact that from 114,000 composing our membership, one fifth are enrolled in our schools, receiving a Christian education, and a training to qualify them for some phase of God’s work. What the past fifty years has wrought in the development of the work, is most strikingly seen in the growth of our funds for evangelical work. Considering the figures in decades, the tithe has been as follows:— First .......... $ 176,826.03
Second .......... 505,136.60
Third .......... 1,837,915.94
Fourth .......... 4,342,193.08
Fifth .......... 11,086,438.41
Total .......... $17,948,510.06 The amount of offerings during this same time by decades has been as follows:— First .......... $ 8,552.57
Second .......... 56,700.86
Third .......... 496,467.01
Fourth .......... 1,271,527.24
Fifth .......... 5,936,924.82
Total .......... $7,770,172.50 The grand total of both tithes and offerings is $25,718,682.56, the annual tithe now amounting to $1,500,000, and the mission offerings to $600,000. Instead of being solely dependent upon America for our resources of men and means, we now have two strong bases of supplies, America and Europe, from which to draw our recruits and their support. Who can doubt that the remarkable progress and growth shown in these facts must be attributed to the Lord’s purpose to speedily close his work in the earth, especially when considered in conjunction with the developments in heathen lands, where a few years since it was almost impossible to obtain a hearing, and in some cases even an entrance to certain countries? Now all this is changed. Many are eagerly seeking instruction in religious matters. Companies of believers are springing up who have never seen the face of one of our American or European workers. The calls for help are not from favored or special sections only, but are well-nigh universal. To receive the three angels’ messages in their fulness, without becoming possessed19 and consumed with the foreign missionary spirit, which sent Christ to this world, is an impossibility. The very language of the messages makes this so, for they are world messages. So whatever we may be doing, plowing or preaching; wherever we may be, at home or abroad, every one is in spirit to be a foreign missionary in the sense that his supreme motive and purpose is to get this message to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people. For this people to give in tithes and offerings over $2,000,000 annually, indicates that the message is sanctifying their hearts and pocketbooks. But the cause of God may, doubtless will, call for greater evidence of our consecration than this. But whatever he asks us to do, wherever he asks us to labor, he has promised to be with us, and never leave nor forsake us. We are simply to be for him in China, India, Africa, or America, hands and feet in the execution of his great purpose of love and mercy. In the light of the final results, nothing we may do for him and his truth, nothing we may relinquish to complete the work in all the world, can really be called a sacrifice, for the returns to us are to be innocence, joy, peace, health, the new earth, the city of God, God and his Son, eternity. At most there can intervene but a few more years until this great consummation. A little more labor and trial, and that for which the church of all ages has waited will be realized. We shall behold the King in his beauty. We shall, if faithful, hear his voice welcoming us to his joy. Standing on the sea of glass before the throne of our Heavenly Father, members of that great company that no man can number, of all nations and kingdoms and peoples and tongues, and encircled with the glories of God’s kingdom, surrounded with the evidences of his love,—who then will regret the years of his service, the trifles that on earth have been relinquished, the trials and the sufferings that may have been endured? Like Paul, we shall reckon that the sufferings of earth are not worthy to be compared with the glories of heaven, made ours by Christ. Certainly the conditions existing in the political, social, and religious world say distinctly that the end of all things is at hand. The rapid development of our own work strongly emphasizes this, and calls for a response from the people of God in consecration of effort, talent, and means commensurate with the solemnity of the occasion, and the magnitude of the enterprise in which we are engaged. Soon we shall hear, not, ‘Arise, and go over this Jordan,’ but, ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’