The Coming Conference by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 17, 1903

The Coming Conference

By Editor

Editorial

The Coming Conference

THE next General Conference will convene in Oakland, Cal., in a few days. While this conference will not be attended by so many delegates as in former years, and there will be but few representatives from the distant fields, yet questions of the gravest importance, which will have a most decided bearing upon the future of this movement, will come before this council of the brethren. A policy and plans should be adopted which really mean the finishing of this work in this generation. This will bring us to a sense of the need of “the Spirit of Jehovah . . . the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jehovah,” that we may be “of quick understanding in the fear of Jehovah.” This is our only hope of success. The hearts of men have become more hard and unimpressible. Stronger and stronger does the tide of evil grow. And those to whom has been offered the privilege of being used in the final conflict of the great controversy have not been fully awake to their responsibility. “O if those who have been blessed with such grand and solemn truth would arise and shake off the spell that has benumbed their senses and caused them to withhold from God their true service, what would not their well-organized efforts accomplish for the salvation of souls!” We ask that all our people will make the coming general conference a subject of daily prayer. Let there be earnest pleading with God that he will reveal his presence at this meeting in a marked manner, and that “there shall be showers of blessing.” Pray that there may be signal tokens of the divine leading in all the counsels, and that the whole gathering may be a pentecostal season which shall mark the beginning of a new power for service throughout the field. We suggest that Sabbath, March 28, the first Sabbath of the conference, be a time of special prayer in all our churches in behalf of this meeting. It will strengthen the hearts of those who are gathered in Oakland to know that the believers in this message throughout the land are before the same throne of grace with them, all uniting in the one prayer, “O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake.” Our hope is that the Captain of the Lord’s host will appear in our midst to give the instructions for a successful campaign. For this let us all pray.

Advertising Sin

THE knowledge of sin incites to sin. The detailed description of wrong-doing suggests to a certain class of minds the doing of the same wrong. And forms of evil of which innocent minds had previously been in blissful ignorance, have been first made known to them by ill-advised reports of some so-called thrilling experience among hardened men and women. We believe that the gospel is able to save the chief of sinners. We believe that efforts should be made to teach the saving truth of the gospel to those in the very depths of sin; but we believe that this work should be done by those of mature years and Christian experience, and that they should employ some other method of interesting Christian people in their work than the plan of giving sensational descriptions of the worst forms of sin. There is no difficulty in interesting the average audience in these stories of vice; but what has been accomplished by it? Seeds of evil have been planted in some minds which will bring forth fruit unto death. An opportunity has been given to the enemy of which he will not be slow to take advantage. In some hour of weakness he will revive these pictures of evil before the mind as a temptation to commit the same sin. It was of just such evil practices as prevail in our modern Sodom that the apostle Paul said, “It is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.” We suggest that these words are applicable now. It appears to us that there is danger of adopting purely sensational methods of work, and of really debauching those who are pure, in a misdirected effort to carry the saving gospel to the impure. Even at the risk of being misunderstood, we must say that we seriously question whether our young people, with comparatively little experience in the ways of the world, are prepared to deal with the worst forms of sin in our large cities. We hope some other opportunities for usefulness may be opened up before them.