A Messenger With a Message by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 1, 1911

A Messenger With a Message

By C. M. S.

NEVER has God sent his servants out into the world without a definite message to give to the people. As in the days of David, so now, it is not the swift runner that is needed so much as the man with something to tell, and a sense of the importance of the message which he bears.

But this is not the case to-day in all edifices dedicated to the work of God. It is not the case with all the professed spokesmen of the Lord. Knowing the agencies that are at work to-day clouding the message of God, and doing their utmost to destroy faith in pulpit and pew alike, is it to be wondered at that faith will be very scarce “when the Son of man cometh”?

The people of old “did not like to retain God in their knowledge;” therefore he “gave them over to a reprobate mind.” The people of this age delight in fables more than in the Word of God; therefore he will permit “strong delusions” to come upon them; and as a natural result, they will “believe a lie,” and go down with it.

Isaiah is speaking of the condition of ease and security which men have made for themselves when he says: “The bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it; and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.” Isa. 28:20. They have made a bed for themselves; but some day they will awake to the sad fact that it is a bed of delusion, which can give them no comfort. They have trusted in their own righteousness; but they find, when the test comes, that it will not cover them. Instead of giving them the message of warning which should have been given, their teachers spoke to them “smooth things,” and they loved “to have it so.” When the great day comes that must “try every man’s work,” then comes the great, sad disappointment, and the terrible cry, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”

This comes, in great part, because the appointed messengers have clouded the message, or have not known it, or, knowing, have not given it, and have sought to please the people in their own ways when they should have warned them to flee for their lives, and look not behind them to the allurements of this world. It is never safe, in a time of great crisis, to turn to our own pleasures, and close the ears to the warnings of the watchman. We are in such a time. Let the messengers give faithfully the message, and let the people heed. The voices of false shepherds are many. We need to be much in the company of the true Shepherd, that we may always recognize his voice, and never mistake the voice of another for his.

C. M. S.