The Set Time by N. Y. Independent

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 20, 1883

"The Set Time."

By N. Y. Independent

It would be hard to estimate the mischief which has been passed down through generations to the church of God by false exegesis of certain familiar scriptures. A fixed meaning has been given to passages by which they have been bound by that "turn of interpretation," to the exclusion of the true thought of God.

Among such scriptures is the one that stands at the head of this article. "For the time to favor her [Zion], yea, the set time is come." From this passage a theory of revivals has grown up in the church, which in our judgment, has done much to hinder revivals and limit the Holy One of Israel in his gracious desire to bless and increase his church: That revivals of religion are not the legitimate and natural outcome of well-ordered use of the means of grace, but there-result of the arbitrary and sovereign will of God; that when his "set time" to favor the church has come, then he will pour out his Spirit upon us and revive us; that the Spirit not only breathes where it listeth, but when it listeth, and that it is not for us to seek to move God to do otherwise than his sovereign will has determined. Therefore, all efforts to promote a revival of religion, are not only useless, but they are wrong.

Now, in our judgment, nothing could be further from the mark than this idea, and nothing more disastrous to the church than that we should act on this theory. It is akin to another false idea, that it is of no use for a sinner to seek the salvation of his soul. For if he is elect, when God's sovereign time for his conversion has come, he will send forth his Spirit and convict him of his sin and bring about his conversion. If he is not elect it is of no use for him to seek the Lord at all.

Before astronomy had advanced to its present position of comparative exactness it was supposed that comets were lawless in their movements, coming and going by no obedience to the laws which reigned otherwise in the universe of God. But now we know that they are as obedient to the law of their orbits as are any of the planets. So it was and is still held by some that revivals come according to no known laws in the spiritual world, but whenever it pleases God to send them. Such theories do violence to every law of God revealed in his word for our guidance and use. The set time to favor Zion is just whenever Zion seeks the Lord with her whole heart. In Psalm 102, where this passage occurs, it is preceded by a distressed outcry to God, in which the psalmist spreads out his woe and want before the Lord, crying to him for help: "Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline thine ear unto me; when I call, answer me speedily." It is followed by a declaration of the fact that "Thy servants take pleasure in her [Zion's] stones, to favor the dust thereof." It is at such a time that "He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer," and "hear the groanings of the prisoner, and loose those that are appointed to death; to declare the name of the Lord in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem, when the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to serve the Lord."

From the foregoing we infer that the time to favor Zion is when his people cry out unto him because of their sins, lie down before him in their helplessness, take pleasure in the interest of his church, and begin to declare his name and sing his praises in presence of the people. In other words, the Lord's set time is when his people seek him with their whole hearts, and turn away from a life of worldliness, self-seeking and vanity. This is in accordance with the entire history of God's dealings with his people, from the earliest times when the prophets and judges had, by preaching and instruction, led them to "lament before the Lord," "to put away their idols and serve him with their whole hearts," until this present day. "Ye shall seek me and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart." The Lord's ear is not heavy that he cannot hear, nor his arm shortened that it cannot save, by reason of any arbitrariness of sovereignty in his will, but by the fact that our sins have separated us from him. Whenever his people are disposed to turn to him with their whole hearts and put away vanity and folly from their lives, consider the transcendent importance of spiritual things and seek after them, then will his "set time" have come to them.

If we are to have a harvest of spiritual blessings, then must we sow in tears and plant in penitence before him, breaking up in the meantime the fallow-ground of our hearts, and gather out the thorns and weeds of carnal things that we have allowed to grow with unchecked liberty; and they have choked the grace that is in us and prevented it from bringing forth any fruit to perfection. The cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the love of pleasure, and the lust of other things—have not all these served to hinder the free operation of the gracious life-giving spirit, not only in our own lives, but in the life of the church, through which it is God's pleasure to bless the world? God's time is now. It remains for us to decide whether the blessing he is waiting to pour out upon us shall fall. Of what use is the sun and rain to an unsown field; or, if sown, to a field that is allowed to be overgrown with thorns and weeds? We speak it reverently; but God's time is limited by our attitude toward him. Shall we have revivals throughout our churches this winter or not? It is for us to decide. Or shall the season pass away again and another year of barrenness and death be added to those which have gone before? How many years has it been since your church has been invited with a great wave of spiritual blessing from the Lord?—N. Y. Independent.