INTENSITY by L. A. S.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 19, 1901

INTENSITY

By L. A. S.

We were told years ago that “intensity” was a characteristic of the time we have now reached in the world’s history. “A new power is springing up from beneath, and taking fast hold on” those agencies which are of the world. Since we were first pointed to this truth, great events have occurred in the world, and marvelous changes have taken place in an incredibly brief space of time. A complete revolution has been wrought in principles and sentiments that had stood for a century. History has been made, and is being made, with tremendous rapidity.

Have you noticed that this is so? Have you observed that an intensity of feeling runs beneath the surface of events, and now and then breaks out in forms of tumult and violence? Have you observed how the mob spirit has grown upon the people of this country in the past few years? how there has been a return to the infliction of “cruel and unusual punishments,” expressly forbidden by the national Constitution? how law and established authority are being set at naught in many places, and mob law instituted in the place of the machinery of civil government? That which could have been spoken with safety a few years ago, can now be uttered only at the risk of personal violence. New definitions of treason are being found, and new avenues of ill feeling and hatred opened up.

There is a simple reason for all this, and an awful one. The restraining Spirit of God is being withdrawn from the earth, and men are being more and more given over to the impulses and passions of the carnal heart.

This awful spirit is stalking through the land to-day, and like a plague, may make some of us its victims. Satan is behind it, and through it is seeking to get full control of the world’s inhabitants. He will draw us into the vortex of carnal passion and strife if possible. We are surprised sometimes, many of us, by the sudden uprising of this wrathful, passionate spirit—the true spirit of anarchy—in our own hearts, where it has been lurking unsuspected. Beware of it; give it no room for activity if you would stand in the final conflict upon the side of the servants of God.

There is another side to the picture; the intensity is not all on the side of darkness. No spirit is so great or so intense as the Spirit of God,—the Spirit which is in the work that is now preparing the world for the second advent of the Messiah. Intensity will be characteristic of God’s closing work in the earth. Have you felt it— do you feel it— stirring you up to greater zeal and activity and love in the cause of God? Intensity is in the world, is filling the world, and is dividing the world into two great classes. One class will be moved by the spirit of evil thinking and surmising, evil speaking and evil plotting, rebellion, treason, and ungovernable passion, by which the world will be filled with violence, as it was in the days of Noah; the other class will be moved by the Spirit of love to God and man, of peace and gentleness, and in contrast with the opposing class will be described as “holy, harmless, undefiled.” But their work will be with an intensity of power which no opposing force can withstand.

What spirit are we cultivating— toward which of these classes are we tending— to-day? It is our privilege to come up now, in “the power of the Spirit,” to “the help of the Lord against the mighty.” L. A. S.