The Burdens to Be Lifted by A. T. Robinson

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 15, 1906

The Burdens to Be Lifted

By A. T. Robinson

A. T. ROBINSON

Whenever a work of reform ceases to be aggressive, it loses its power and vitality, and settles down to a round of forms and ceremonies. This has been the outcome of every great religious movement in the past.

We profess to be engaged in the last great religious reformation that will ever be carried forward in this world. This movement is destined to prepare a people for the second coming of the Saviour. In the very nature of such a movement, it must never cease to be aggressive. In the very words of the message for this time, it must continue to be aggressive until it shall have reached earth’s remotest bounds; until it shall have been proclaimed to “every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.”

So long as a religious reformation continues to be an aggressive movement, constantly becoming more and more world-wide in the scope of its operations its needs must ever increase, and its demands upon those charged with the responsibility of carrying forward the work must ever increase. We can never, in this movement, look forward to some point of time beyond which we may expect the calls for means to carry forward the work to become less frequent or less urgent. Unless we shall prove traitors to our Commander, we are enlisted in this warfare until the conflict is ended, and the glorious, eternal victory is won. To the full extent of the talents entrusted to us, we are indebted to a world in perishing need of this message. Let us turn our thoughts for a moment to the calls for the present hour.

One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollar Fund

After a careful study of the immediate demands on our work in the great Southern fields, the completion of the work at Washington, D. C., the work of the Pacific Press of California, and some pressing demands on the work in foreign lands, it was at first decided that a call must be made for not less than two hundred thousand dollars. At the recent session of the General Conference Committee and presidents of conferences, held at Washington, D. C., the estimates were carefully revised, the corners were cut at every point where any reduction seemed possible, and the decision was arrived at to make a call for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Here is a call which demands that every true-hearted believer in our ranks shall put his shoulders squarely beneath the load and lift every pound he can lift, and then ask the Lord for strength to lift again.

Our Annual Offerings

We are within a few short weeks of the time for our annual offerings for foreign missions. Can we be content to think that our annual offerings to foreign missions will be less this year because of these other calls? Before deciding thus, let us think what this would mean to our hundreds of workers in far-away lands, who receive their support for quite a portion of the year from the money contributed in annual offerings. It seems imperative that our annual offerings this year be made on even a larger scale than heretofore.

Surely the work of the third angel’s message has reached gigantic proportions. Instead of pointing out on the map of the world, as we did a few years ago, a few places where the message has been planted, we can now point to but few places where a beginning has not already been made. There is no stopping place now. There is no place where we can say to the Mission Board, You must retrench. We must meet the issue. We must bear the burdens and responsibility resting upon us. We must put our backs to the load to be lifted this year, that we may thus gain added strength for the heavier load of next year, and thus go on from strength to strength as the years go by, until the task is performed, and the Master shall say, ‘It is finished.’

College View, Neb.