Is Our Work Disintegrating?
By I. H. Evans
How many times we have heard it said within the last eighteen months, “It looks to me as though everything was going to pieces,” or “I think our future is pretty dark,” or again, “I have lost my courage. I think we are disintegrating, and will soon go to pieces!” Now remember, no one ever makes such remarks until he, himself, is in the dark, when he at once concludes that every one else must be in the same condition. There are many souls losing their hold on God, and wrecking their faith in the final success of this work. But is this any argument that the cause of God is not onward?—None, whatever. Long have we known that the time must come when many who once loved the truth and had even sacrificed for its advancement, would lose their zeal, and become lukewarm,—“neither cold nor hot.” What means the Laodicean message, if it does not apply to such times as we are now entering? We expect that many will give up the truth, and even become our bitterest opposers, but all this signifies nothing as regards the progress of God’s work. Man may often erect barriers against the truth, but truth will triumph still. Nor is the third angel’s message losing its power to affect hearts. It may not stir our own hearts as it once did, but that may signify that our hearts are hardened, and that we have lost our first love, instead of the power of the message being lessened. Never in the history of our work has there been such marked progress along all lines, as during the last ten years. Look at ten years of growth in this work, and then ask the question, Is God’s work stagnated, or has my own heart become paralyzed? In 1893, our reported total membership was 37,404. In 1903, just ten years later, our reported membership was 77,736. A gain in ten years, of 40,332. Or, in other words, we had gained in ten years 2,928 more Sabbath-keepers than we had gained during all our previous existence. Is that stagnation and death?—Nay, verily; it is growth, not equal to our desires, but a growth hardly equaled in per cent by any other denomination. In 1893, our offerings for mission work had averaged for the previous five years, $70,240.72. In the five years preceding 1903, our offerings for mission work averaged $131,166.96, while in the 1903 donation, it reached a grand total of $184,026.58. Our annual offering for 1903 exceeded the high-water mark of all other years, by more than $10,000. In 1892, the total tithe of all our people aggregated $302,310.19, while in 1902, it reached $643,747.83. Besides this, look at the institutions planted during the last ten years. When did the church-school work make its growth?—During the last ten years. When did our conference schools, which are now in nearly every conference, get started?—During the past decade. When did our numerous sanitariums, vegetarian restaurants, etc., spring up?—Nearly all, except the Battle Creek and St. Helena Sanitariums, have sprung up within ten years. Look at the mission fields we have entered during this time. All of South Africa except Cape Colony, Nyassaland, the Gold Coast, German East Africa, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, India, China, Japan and nearly all the Pacific Islands, South America, West Indies from Bermuda to Guiana, Central America, Mexico, Alaska, Manitoba, and nearly all of our mission stations outside of portions of Europe, have been entered during the past ten years. Never has there been such progress in all lines of the work as we can now behold. Nearly every nation of earth is now opened to the truth, and many are pleading for help. Has the third angel’s message lost its power? Never was it so strong to win souls as now. Behold! brethren, the whole mount is aflame with the chariots of God’s messengers. The battle cry is “Onward; God’s message to all the world!” Shall we see such overwhelming evidences of God’s leading, and still remain a prisoner in doubting castle? Are we to see with our eyes the “fine flour and the barley sold for a shekel,” but not taste its sweetness ourselves? If the next ten years sees the same marked progress, and there is an equal increase in membership, there will be living on earth then more than 144,000 Seventh-day Adventists, scattered among the nations of earth. Our tithes will then have reached over $1,280,000 a year, while our offerings will have reached nearly half a million dollars per annum. Is it a time now to sit in ease and quietness, or shall we join the workers’ ranks, and become one of the Lord’s host that goes up to possess the goodly land?