p. 4 | Clouding the Message by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 3, 1910

Clouding the Message

By C. M. S.

God’s servants were never sent out into the world without a definite message to give to the people. As in the days of David, 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 the majority of the churches in Christendom. There is no warning trumpet sounded from the Lord of hosts by the appointed watchman, though that day is fast approaching which is full of terror and desolation for those who are unprepared. This is the time in which it was declared that the people would be saying to the appointed seers of God, “See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits.” Isa. 30:10. All this was done in order that they might “cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before” them.

That is also the time spoken of in 2 Tim. 4:3, 4: “For the time will come when they will not endure the sound doctrine; but, having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside unto fables.” The teaching of fables is the burden of a great deal of the pulpit productions to-day. Philosophical essays about religion, the social life, athletics, and politics, learned disquisitions on evolution and the Higher Criticism, with much discounting of the Word of God, — these occupy the thirty or forty minutes given to the appointed pastor of the popular church to-day at the most important meeting of the week, while vocal and instrumental solos and pipe-organ entertainments unite to lull the consciences of men and women into sweet dreams of security. While this is going on, Satan is busy fettering souls.

Knowing the agencies that are at work clouding the message of God and doing their utmost to destroy faith, is it any wonder that faith will be very scarce in this time? With the higher institutions of learning in the country pitted against the Word, is it to be wondered at that the faith of many should be shaken? The people of old “did not like to retain God in their knowledge,” and therefore he “gave them over to a reprobate mind.” The people of this age are coming to delight in fables more than in the Word of God. Therefore he will permit “strong delusion” to come upon them; and as a natural result they will “believe a lie,” and go down with it.

Isaiah is speaking of that very condition of ease and security that men have made for themselves, when he says: “The bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it; and the cover narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.” Isa. 28:20. They have made a bed for themselves; but they will awake to the sad fact some day that it is a bed of delusion, which can give no comfort. They have trusted in their own righteousness; but they will find, when the test comes, that that righteousness 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 that great day comes that must “try every man’s work,” then comes the 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, and have sought to please the people in their own ways when they should have warned them to flee for their lives, and to look not behind them to the allurements of this world. It is never safe in the time of a great crisis to turn to our own pleasures and close our ears to the warnings of the watchman. We are in such a time. Let us heed the warnings of God, and turn from the enticing snares set by Satan to capture souls. C. M. S.