Closing Message of the Gospel
By Roswell F. Cottrell
Closing Message of the Gospel.—No. 5.
If it is barely possible that the last warning of the gospel is now, by God's appointment and providence, being proclaimed to mankind, it is a matter of thrilling interest, demanding the most serious investigation. But it is much more than possible or even probable. To the intelligent believer in God's word and providence, who has thoroughly investigated the subject, it is most certain. There is no reasonable doubt of it. Let us briefly refer to some of the evidences. 1. The four great kingdoms, prophesied of in Dan. 2, 7, have arisen in the given order of sequence, and all is fulfilled concerning them except the last act—the dashing of the nations in pieces and the establishing of the promised everlasting kingdom of God, under the whole heavens. 2. The papacy has appeared as foretold in Dan. 7, and Rev. 13: 1–10, has spoken his words of blasphemy against God, has worn out the saints of the Most High, has thought to change the times and laws of God, has continued his full period of time—time, times and a half, forty-two months, or twelve hundred and sixty year-days—his dominion has been taken away, his power is consumed, and nothing remains for him but his destruction by the brightness of Christ's second and glorious coming, and the establishment of his everlasting and world-wide dominion. See Dan. 7: 25–27; 2 Thess. 2: 8. 3. The signs in the heavens, the darkening of the sun and moon and the falling of the stars foretold by the Lord Jesus Christ, have all appeared; and he has assured us that when these should be seen his coming is even at the doors. 4. The great prophetic period of 2300 days, which was to reach to the commencement of the cleansing of the sanctuary—the closing work of Jesus as High Priest—has expired without a doubt; none that I am aware of attempt to dispute it; and as a consequence his priestly office is about to end, and his reign as the ruler of the everlasting kingdom is about to begin. 5. At the point where the 2300 days evidently ended, namely, in 1844, the message of the angel with the everlasting gospel was sounded through the earth: “Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come.” Rev. 14: 6, 7. 6. In that year was heard the second announcement of the predicted series: “Babylon is fallen, is fallen.” 7. Since the ending of the prophetic days, and consequently while our great High Priest is ministering in the most holy place of the sanctuary, before the ark of God's testimony, containing the ten commandments of the moral law (See Ex. 25: 16; 31: 18; Deut. 4: 13; Rev. 11: 19), to make the atonement for all his people, blotting out their transgressions of those commandments, the third and last message is sounding through the world, vindicating the perpetuity and unchangeableness of these commandments, which the blasphemer of God and the persecutor of his saints has thought himself able to change; and warning all to array themselves with those of whom it is said, “Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus,” and not follow that rival power that has given to the world a revised edition of the law of God. 8. And while God is preparing a people for translation, by bringing them into unity upon his commandments and the faith of Christ and his second coming, Satan is propagating his last form of infidelity, Spiritualism, by which he would deceive, if possible, the very elect, by the means of those seducing spirits which are described as the “spirits of devils working miracles,” whose final work will be to gather the angry nations to the battle of the great day of God Almighty. Matt. 24: 24; 2 Thess. 2: 9–11; Rev. 16: 14. Thus step by step have the promises of God, as given in prophecy, been fulfilled, from the days of the kingdom of Babylon to the present time. Not one of these promises has failed. Is it reasonable to conclude, from these promises, that the final promises shall fail? The earlier predictions of this chain of prophecy, with their fulfillment in the given order, were intended to inspire faith in the latter; and especially in the last testing message of the gospel, which, with the close of probation, shall close the struggle between truth and error, between faith and infidelity. And now that the closing message is being proclaimed, and the contest between the gray traditions of the man of sin and the word of the living God is growing warmer and warmer, what kind of faith is that which disbelieves or ignores it? Is it not infidelity to reject so plain and obvious a fulfillment of the promise of God? What means the growing agitation on the question of God's law and Sabbath, which so clearly and unmistakably point to an irrepressible conflict before us? Why are the religious journals of almost all denominations drawn out to take sides in this controversy? A few years ago you would hardly learn from these papers that the Sunday-Sabbath had any rival, or that any had convictions of conscience that they ought to keep the day that God blessed and sanctified instead. Why this great change at a time when the public mind is crowded with so many other interests and speculations? Why is it, my Seventh-day Baptist brethren, that the way is opening for the spread of Sabbath truth as it has not been during the past two hundred years of your history in the United States? The answer to these questions is simply this: The time has come for the last message of the gospel to be preached, by which the people are to be prepared for the last test of probation. The agitation will go on. God's law will be fully vindicated in the eyes of all the true-hearted. And not only this, but the word of prophecy will be shown to be a sure word; and unbelief in it will prove to be infidelity. For about a quarter of a century this message has been gradually rising. Its early predictions, founded upon the prophecies of the Bible, respecting our own government—the part it shall act in the closing scenes of probation—have become so nearly matters of fact as to be convincing to the candid observer of the signs of the times. The “religious amendment” of our national Constitution, for which we have been looking for more than twenty years, in order to the enforcement of the worship and mark of the beast, is now imminent. See Rev. 13: 11–18. While the message, “If any man worship the beast and his image,” &c., is sounding, a rapidly growing “national association” is at work to fulfill the prophecy by enforcing Sunday-keeping by constitutional law. The result will be what the prophecy plainly teaches. Now is the time to choose on which side we will be found, when the trial of faith shall come. The test must surely come. It cannot be avoided; for the word of God cannot be broken. Momentous time! Who will make the right choice? Now is the time.