p. 9 | WHAT ARE WE DOING? by E. H. Whitney

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 13, 1879

WHAT ARE WE DOING?

By E. H. Whitney

WHAT are we doing to save souls? What effort are we making to advance the truth? Had we half the faith that characterized the infancy of this cause, the willingness to sacrifice our time, means, and comfort, that those had who entered upon the work twenty-five or thirty years ago, we should see souls turning to the truth by scores and hundreds, on every side.

But what excuse have we? The truth is ready, so to speak, to our hand; the complete chain of evidence as to the correctness of our position is before us. We have only to take our place in the ranks, bear our own responsibility, and do our own duty. The way is opened through the tract society organization for us each to work, and there is no excuse for even the feeblest to stand idle. Any one who has a mind to work has the material within reach, and the experience of others to help him.

But what are we doing? The Spirit of God answers, Not one-twentieth part of what we ought to do. The thickening signs on every hand portend the dreadful events of the near future, and are attracting the attention of every thinking mind, even among the world. In this strange, unsettled state of the atmosphere, social, political and natural, they see the shadow of some momentous event,—we recognize the footsteps of the Son of man, who is near, even at the door. Can we sleep on amid all this, making such half-hearted efforts for the spread of the truth as we have done?

Not that the truth needs us so much. God need not wait for us to do his work. He who holds the hearts of men in his hand need not delay for us to move on. But he has called us, and is willing to prove us, waiting that he may be gracious. Not much longer can he wait. The work must move on; and if we will not go with it, it will move on without us. The long years which to the view of angel watchers seemed but a little while have almost passed, till even to us whose days are as a hand-breadth there seems to be but a little while remaining. Soon it will be over, and then what account shall we have to render of wasted opportunities, golden moments forever lost through negligence, talents buried through lack of faith and energy, means hoarded, or spent upon ourselves, because we were too selfish and faithless to trust the loving hand that gave them to us, and give the Lord back his own again! Souls around us, hungering, and stretching out their hands for the truth,—soil that needs but the seed scattered and watered with prayers and tears to bring rich sheaves for the Master's garner,—oh! friends, shall these rise up in judgment against us?

Had we half the excuse for backwardness in the Lord's work that the faithful servants have had in the past, had we half the difficulties to meet, the crosses to bear, the privations to undergo, the punishment of our sloth might be lighter than it will be if we fail of duty now.

What if we do not always see the seed springing up where we have scattered it, shall we become discouraged, or will it be any less our duty to sow beside all waters? Our experience will be none the less genuine if we do not always see the result of our labors. We may never know, here, all that we have accomplished—it may not be best for us to know; but if we do all we can, not waiting for results, there may be some joyful surprises for us on the other side.

Some earnest word for the truth, dropped when the heart was warm with communion with God, a tract chosen and given when we felt most conscious of our own weakness, may be the seed which, with God's blessing, will spring up and bear fruit many fold to his glory. If we are faithful in every place, it cannot be but that good will be accomplished. But it is ours to be faithful in our work,—His to look after the results.

In the words of another, “If God bids me go and quarry in flinty rocks that defy the hardest steel, it is nothing to me if I can do no more than to dull my drill and sharpen it again. The rock may not be the worse for it; but my heart will be the better for it. If the rock has not yielded, my heart has grown stronger and has risen into a stateliness and might that only comes as a reward of faith clinging to duty for duty’s sake.”

Though in some cases our labor may seem to be lost, it is not wholly so. The reflex influence of a labor of love for souls is a reward in itself, and seed will sometimes find lodging place where we least expect it.

I wish I could say something to rouse the young to exertion. There are many among us, young men and women, just in the flush of life's morning, who are members of our churches, yet who, in mingling with the world in school and in society are half ashamed of the cross of Christ, who feel afraid to introduce the truth to their young friends, and can hardly acknowledge it to others without an inward shrinking. Dear friends, if you would lift the cross bravely and cheerfully, you would soon find yourselves lifted by it. You know not what hearts may be waiting for just the word you could speak, and God is giving you the opportunity to say it. It is a fearful thing to think that we shall be held responsible, not only for the evil we do, but for the good we might do and fail of doing; yet it is true. Oh, how worthless and contemptible will our excuses look when all is over, and we look back upon them when too late to recall them!

If we could have a true sense of the nearness of the end, we could not rest, but should work night and day for perishing souls; but it is folly to wait for this. Where is our faith, if we wait for feeling. The more effort we make, the more we identify our interests with the cause of God, the more intensely we shall feel; but if we wait to feel all we would, instead of feeling more deeply, the burden of the work will leave us, and we shall grow hard and cold.

Our position is much like that of travelers in the Arctic cold. If we turn our attention only to ourselves, and neglect others, our danger is imminent; but if we throw ourselves heartily into the work of saving others, our own chance of salvation is increased. May God pity our weakness and stupidity, and help us to work from principle, steadily and unfalteringly with a faith in him and his work which discouragements will not shake nor trials weaken, till he shall come.

E. H. WHITNEY.