Stand by the Message by E. K. Slade

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 21, 1903

Stand by the Message

By E. K. Slade

E. K. SLADE

Many, in times past, have looked forward to a time in which great faith and firmness and much of the power of God would be required in order to stand true to the message and the cause of God. We are in such a time as that now. The elements that make it a most testing time may be far different from those that were seen and feared, but the time is here, and we are in it either to be established and kept safe to the end or to be shaken about and shaken out before the end.

God's keeping power in such a time accompanies a special message for that time. Faithful regard for the special truth proclaimed by Noah one hundred and twenty years, declaring that the judgment of God was at hand, meant safety and salvation to that man of God. The direct and special message to Nineveh brought salvation to that city, as the message was heard and heeded. The same was true in the days of Lot. The special message that came to him and the cities about him was a message of salvation to all who received it.

Just now and from this time on our only hope of being kept and safely carried through to the end is in hearing, heeding, and heralding the special and definite truth, “The day of the Lord is at hand.” At such a time as this, many things will occur to obscure and make ineffective the message for the time. It is the last message of salvation, and this is the last generation that can give or receive it; and we who know the import of the message as well as its time and place, are bound, under God, to sound the note so clearly and well pitched that none who hear it can fail to know that the day of the Lord is at hand. That Jesus is coming in this generation, should call forth the mightiest efforts on the part of all who believe it, to make it known to the many millions who do not know it. To truly know it and believe it will awaken the truest joy of which the human heart can know. This timely truth, tersely told, will bring hope and gladness to thousands of homes of gloom and sadness. Many a weary soul who has grown old in waiting for the consummation of his hope, will be gladdened when he is assured that Jesus will come in this generation, in his generation.

The great reforms accompanying this message are not to take the place of the message, nor are they in any way to obscure it by occupying a foremost place in the prosecution of the work of reform. They will fulfil their true purpose in helping to bring to the world everywhere the knowledge of this precious truth, “The day of the Lord is at hand,” and in helping the inhabitants of the world in every nation to prepare for that event. Only thus will they be effective in accomplishing the good for which they are instituted. Their force is lost to the

world when the message is not given its proper place.

It should be the chief object in all our efforts, the prompting motive in all our plans, the central thought in all our councils, the keynote in all our preaching; for it is the one great, central truth for this time, giving force and value to all truth. It will lead to the culmination of the whole gospel plan, and the establishment of the kingdom of God in the earth. The one purpose of every man and woman, of every church and every conference, of every department of the work and every institution, will be to give the message to all the world, that Jesus may come in this generation. “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.” Matt. 24: 45-47.