The Last Message to a Dying World by Henry Shultz

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 7, 1907

The Last Message to a Dying World

By Henry Shultz

HENRY SHULTZ

The last message to all people is the threefold message of Rev. 14: 6-15, with its kindred truths. To say that the time has come for these truths to be given to the world is true, but that would hardly express the facts as they are. As we examine the prophecies, we are forced to the conclusion that these messages must be given to this generation now living upon the earth, and by a more careful study of the Word we find ourselves a long way down in the generation to whom these messages are due, and that but a short time remains to finish the work. This being true, we are forced to the conclusion that the time has come when every member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church should be a working member somewhere in the Master's service. The world is to be warned. Every nation, kindred, tongue, and people is to hear the glad tidings of the soon-coming Saviour. The world in its blindness does not seek after this salvation. It must be brought to the people. In this our blessed Lord set us the example. He left the courts of glory, came down to this sinful world, to bring to man salvation, and he asks every son and daughter of his to follow in his steps.

Let us not begin to make excuses and say, “I am not fit to preach,” “I never will make a preacher,” or “I can not do anything.” It is true God has not called every man and woman to be a preacher by word of mouth; and yet no one is excused from doing his part in carrying this last message to all people. If you can not go forth and preach the word, get a good supply of papers, books, pamphlets, and tracts and scatter them among the people like the autumn leaves which fall from the trees after the frost has nipped them. They will do the preaching for you in a quiet way, and if any one gets angry at what they teach, and throws them away, they will take the abuse without retaliating, and when they are picked up again, in a quiet way they will preach the same thing over again. And so men and women will be brought to a knowledge of the truth for this generation.

America is a country made up of all nations. There are in the United States alone nearly thirty-one million people speaking a foreign tongue, and nearly one half of these can not speak the English language. They must hear the truth in their own tongue, and as our brethren and sisters speaking a foreign language are anxious to have their American neighbors hear the glad message of a soon-coming Saviour and provide them with English reading-matter, will not our American brethren and sisters everywhere look about them and see if they do not have neighbors speaking a language different from their own, and provide them with reading-matter that they are able to read? But, you may ask, Where can we get the reading-matter in the different languages? This may be obtained from the State tract societies. In ordering, state plainly in what language the books, pamphlets, tracts, or papers are wanted, and if the tract society from which you order does not have them in stock, they will order them sent direct to you from the International Publishing Association, College View, Neb.

After the burning of the Review and Herald Office at Battle Creek, Mich., this Association was established to print our literature in the German, Swedish, and Danish-Norwegian languages. This work they are doing to the best of their ability, but the truths for these times in which we live being printed and laid upon the shelves of the publishing houses can do no good; they will not win a single soul for the Master. Brethren, shall we not arouse, wake up, and go to work as in former days, when we never went anywhere without our pockets full of tracts and papers, and handed them out to every one we met? In this way we sowed the seed so that when the living preacher came along and watered the seed sown, it sprang up and grew, and churches were multiplied everywhere. If this kind of work was necessary in the beginning of the message, how much more so now when the message is about to close. Truly the time has come when we should arise and go to work as never before.

The powers of darkness are marshaling their forces all over the world. Sunday laws and persecutions threaten on all sides. These things alone should stir us to action, for we know that this last war against those who keep the commandments of God will take place just before the coming of the Master in the clouds of heaven. Hence we see that we have but a very short time in which to work, and we should work as we never worked, scattering tracts and papers among the people as we never did before.

The joy of our Lord is to see many souls saved in the kingdom of God through his labor and sufferings, and if we would enter into his joy (Matt. 25: 21-23), we must do something for others to win them for the kingdom of our God. Then shall we enter into the same joy that fills the Master's heart.