p. 4 | A Day of Good Tidings by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Assn. · Washington, D.C. · Dec 31, 1903

“A Day of Good Tidings”

By W. A. S.

“THE night is far spent, the day is at hand.” When we accepted this truth, every soul of us took our place in the ranks of the Lord’s morning watch. It is ours to awaken the sleepers in all the world by the warning cry that day is dawning. Prophets and holy men of God since the world began have fallen asleep in the blessed hope of that glad hour when the day should dawn, and the day star arise in our hearts. Now we actually see the gleams of the golden morning. We must herald the solemn and glorious cry to all the ends of the earth.

“This day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace: if we tarry till the morning light, we shall find punishment: now therefore come, that we may go and tell the king’s household.” 2 Kings 7:9, margin. So spoke four starving outcasts of Israel “in the twilight” of that morning of deliverance when they found the great spoil outside the walls of Samaria, and remembered the famishing men and women and little ones shut up in the hopeless city. We have committed to us the precious treasure of this third angel’s message. “I rejoice at thy word,” says the psalmist, “as one that findeth great spoil.” Ps. 119:162. This twilight hour of the dawn of eternity is a time of good tidings. The world is famishing. Truly if we tarry till the morning light, if we hold back now from carrying the tidings to our brethren of the King’s household, scattered among all the nations of the earth, we shall have sore punishment, swift and speedy.

“If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Behold, we know it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?” Prov. 24:11, 12. Thus does God press upon us the burden of answering the cry from the regions beyond. We can not say we know not the need; for in our papers from week to week our workers in the mission fields have told us of it, and have told how the truth wins victories wherever it is preached. And no believer in this message desires to remain ignorant of the need. There is but one thing worth living for now, and that is to respond to the call of heaven to rescue the perishing.

We know that brethren of the King’s household, hungering and thirsting for the truth that we know, are waiting for us in all the lands abroad. The little band of workers is continually finding them. And we know it because John in vision, beholding the close of this sealing message, saw the white-robed throng, washed in the blood of the Lamb, coming from every nation, and tongue, and tribe,—a vast multitude. Our business is to seek them out. Angels can guide the feet of the workers to the praying ones, as Peter was led to Cornelius, even though the heavenly messengers are unseen.

W. A. S.