A Day of Opportunity by I. H. Evans

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 26, 1909

A Day of Opportunity

By I. H. Evans

SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS believe that at this time there is due to the world a special message to prepare a people for the soon coming of the Lord. That this message is world-wide and to go to every kindred and tongue and people, they truly believe is taught by the Word of God itself. They also believe that God has given this message to them that they might pass it on to the whole world in this generation.

The opportunities for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ were never so numerous as at the present time. The doors of the nations have been thrown wide open, and the cry is heard from every land, “Come over and help us.” Those who read the reports from the mission stations in the General Conference Bulletin during the session of our last General Conference, can not but be impressed with the universal call for means and workers from almost every land. China calls to this people for forty families to be sent to that country during the next two years. Korea stretches forth her hands most appealingly for help. Japan is looking to America that additional workers may be sent to help preach the gospel in that country. India calls for eleven families to be sent this year, if possible, to her needy fields. The Philippines, Africa, South America, Mexico, and the islands of the sea all appeal to us with outstretched hands, crying for help to spread the gospel of the soon-coming Saviour.

It is most encouraging to note the progress that the work is making among these nations. Since April more than ninety persons have accepted the truth in Korea alone. China, too, is reporting special progress, and the Lord is blessing in the work in that great field. India sends most encouraging reports of the work bestowed upon her people, and earnestly pleads that the General Conference will not fail to send recruits this year, to develop the work in the many openings that are calling for helpers.

What will the General Conference do with all these calls for additional workers? Is it able to supply the demand? Week after week, the General Conference Committee met at the close of the General Conference session, canvassing every conference in the United States, carefully scrutinizing the Year Book, trying to determine whom they could call upon to go to these foreign fields. Not one fourth of the workers called for at the last General Conference have been supplied by this denomination up to the present time. Is it not a sad pity that this people, with sixty thousand members in the United States, with schools scattered from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans, with ten thousand young people in training for the Master’s service, can not give to needy India, to the far East, and to darkened Africa the needed help to preach this truth? Think of these benighted heathen lands imploring a General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists to send them teachers of the third angel’s message.

The Mission Board greatly desires to secure the services of ten families to go to China this fall. Where are they? Who will go? Do we say that there certainly must be plenty, and that the call does not mean me? We must have young, strong, vigorous men and women who can learn the language, who will give their lives unselfishly to the preaching of the message to those poor heathen. The self-denials will be many, but the blessings that will come into the soul as the result of giving one’s life to this great work will amply repay all the sacrifice necessary to become a worker for this needy people.

We must have young men who will go to India, and study the various dialects and languages of that great country. One hundred forty-seven different languages are spoken in India, and we have not mastered so many as half a dozen of

these languages. We must supply recruits to all these various nations in India before the Lord will come. Is the message to drag on indefinitely? Are the months and years to pass, and we yet be unable to supply the call for helpers in these various nationalities? If so, when do we expect the Lord to come? If the message is to go to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, and we have not manned more than six of the one hundred forty-seven languages in India; if we have entered only five of the eighteen different provinces of China; if Manchuria, Tibet, and Mongolia are all untouched, when can we expect the Lord to come unless we arise and do our work? Do we expect the Methodists, the Baptists, the Presbyterians, to preach the message to these heathen nations? Do we expect that other Christian people will take the third angel’s message and carry it to these nations of the world? What has God called us to this work for, if it be not to give this truth to the world in this generation?

But where are the men who will go to these needy fields? Shall these heathen die in their sin, while God’s people delay to do the work committed to them? Ought not the church of Christ to look to itself and determine whether there be those in its midst who ought to go to these distant fields? Why should not the church select its young people and arrange that they go to school and secure a training that will qualify them to do the Master’s work? It may be that these young people have not the funds with which to put themselves through school. What better work can a church do than to select its consecrated young people and give them a training, even at the expenditure of considerable means, in order that they may become workers in God’s cause?

We believe that the hour has come when this people must make advance moves. It will not do to let China rest another year. It will not do to let India go unrecruited and its calls unanswered simply because sixty thousand believers of the message in this country think they are unable to go to a foreign field. Surely God has given to this people strength, both financially and numerically, to do the work that he has committed to their trust. If we fail to do this work now, God must either wait our time, or he must raise up other men who will do the work, and receive the reward for their service.

We appeal to our people everywhere, to consider whether these great, needy fields shall receive the help they need, or whether they must languish or perish for the lack of the truth which we possess. We believe this is the day of God’s opportunity. The gateway to the nations of the world is open, and we are welcomed everywhere in all the world, to preach the gospel. Should we not quicken our pace? Should we not hasten our steps? Should we not consecrate our lives and means to the work of this message, as never before? Surely something must be done to cause us to arouse, that we may realize the responsibility of the work committed to this people, and to prompt us to quick action.

Why should not the church pray most earnestly that God will lay upon the hearts of those he can use in these fields, a great burden to go? There ought to be at least a score or more of families in addition to the workers already selected to go to the East, who would start for those countries this fall. While we are praying for workers, let us not forget to get the means necessary for their support. It means men, it means money, it means service and sacrifice on the part of those who go, and on the part of those who remain, if we finish this work.

As Mordecai said unto Esther when she, called to go before King Ahasuerus, feared that her life might be forfeited; so can we say to ourselves at this time, “Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king’s house, more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” I. H. EVANS.