Prayer and Missions by W. A. Spicer

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 9, 1902

Prayer and Missions

By W. A. Spicer

The blessings of the week of prayer, December 20–27, are not to be sought for ourselves alone. Again let the prayer circle that now girdles the world send up to heaven the psalmist’s prayer: “God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us; that thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.”

None will watch for the fruitage of this week of prayer with greater interest than our workers in the mission fields. It is not merely that the great annual thank offering to God for the missionary cause is to be made by all the people. That means much to all who face wide-open doors without the ability to enter. But nothing can bring greater inspiration into the fields abroad than the news of a spiritual outpouring and a reviving and awakening among the great body of believers in the home churches.

The genuine revival of the advent faith in a quickly coming Saviour, among sixty thousand Seventh-day Adventists in the home land, would electrify the believers in all the world, and give power to the testimony borne that would speedily warn the nations. The final message, “Behold the Bridegroom cometh!” would quickly be borne to the whole world as the “midnight cry” swept through the ranks of believers in the 1844 movement. Let us seek God for the cleansing from sin and the power for witnessing.

To this very revival the voice of God is calling: “Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem. . . . Shake thyself from the dust; arise. . . . How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth glad tidings, that publisheth peace; . . . that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! . . . The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.” This is to be in our day. Let us begin now to pray that the coming season of special prayer may mark a mighty onward movement in the lands abroad.

W. A. SPICER, Secretary Mission Board.