p. 5 | That He Might Bring Us In by William Ambrose Spicer

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 14, 1903

“That He Might Bring Us In”

By William Ambrose Spicer

Now Let Us Go In

It is no time now to settle down as though to live a long time in this world. We are almost home — home in the promised land. After the forty years of wandering, Moses rehearsed God's purpose with Israel:—

“And he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he sware unto our fathers.” Deut. 6: 23.

God called the people of Israel out of Egypt to give them the goodly land which he had spied out for them. Unless they should reach the land, they were a people without a country. There could be no thought of settling down in the wilderness, to make it their home. There was no place where feet or hearts could rest down.

Everything about them — their tents, their equipment, the daily manna, and the pillar of fire and of cloud — betokened a pilgrimage. Everything indicated a nation on the march. There was no place for them back in Egypt, there was no place for them in the wilderness; the only thing for them to do was to march straight forward into the land.

Now we, as Israel were, are children of the promise. God called this people out of the world in the great advent movement, nearly a generation ago. It has been a longer pilgrimage than it need have been. But he brought us out that he might bring us in. He has not forgotten his purpose. And we may know now that we are on the borders of the eternal Canaan. We can never think of settling down as other churches. Our origin and history indicate a people raised up to carry to the world the stirring message that Jesus is coming in this generation. To think of settling down as Sabbath-keeping churches merely to live moral lives, and engage in philanthropic work for another thirty or forty years is to deny absolutely the basis of our whole movement, and to shut our eyes to its history.

The very fact that there is a people called Seventh-day Adventists in the world is evidence that there is now to be a people all astir, going up and down this world sounding the warning of the great day of God. Every appointed worker is to be a minuteman, ready for quick marches. Every man in business who has the gift of earning money, and who believes this truth, is to run his business for that one thing — to tell the world as quickly as possible that the end is at hand.

As surely as we are alive and called Seventh-day Adventists, we are a people on the march, and there is no place to settle down, no basis on which to plan for any other future than that which centers inside the promised land.

“God bids his people on the earth, Before he comes and calls them hence, To live unknit to home and hearth, Like far-bound travelers — in tents.

“O brother, whatsoever chain Binds us to fleshly lust and strife, Here let us rend it in God's name, And live, henceforth, the pilgrim life.”

“He brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he sware unto our fathers.” And, thank God, we are to go in ere all the fathers in the message have fallen asleep. Never had a people such a glorious call to service as have we. Now indeed Heaven calls for this people to make it manifest that we are really on the march. The spectacle of sixty thousand Seventh-day Adventists throwing every energy into service, and devoting their all to the one thing of carrying this message to the world, now and at once, would make earth's millions tremble. They shall see it, and that, too, without long delay. There is to be no turning back of God's purposes. Some must quickly enter in, and the final work now faces us. W. A. S.