SOUND AN ALARM | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 13, 1901

SOUND AN ALARM.

IT is not pessimism to tell Mr. Brown that his property is in danger when we see the swollen waters of the river breaking thru the dikes which protect his land. And if he should say, “O, I am an optimist, it will all work out right!” when a few hours of vigorous labor would have saved his crops, his neighbors would call him a fool.

It is not pessimism when you see Mr. Smith’s house blazing with fire, the rafters falling in, to arouse him in his bed on the ground floor, and tell him that no power can save his house from destruction, but that he must summon every energy to save himself and family. If you in your “optimism” should fail to warn him, or he in his “optimism” should fail to arouse when warned, you would be denounced as a wicked sinner, and he as an optimistic fool.

If the watchman of God see evils, which he knows from Revelation and all the history of the past to issue only in destruction, eating right into the vitals of a city, a nation, a government, a people, and he fail to give them warning, believing, hoping that somehow, somewhere, good will come out of it, he is a wicked criminal, and the blood of the people of that city will God require of him. But if he give warning, he does his duty, and the people neglect it at their peril. Optimism will not excuse him nor save them.

If the watchman of God see the increasing tides of sin rolling high, see the weakening dikes of moral character in people, in church, in State, thruout the earth, see the great multitudes slumbering on in seeming security, and fail to do all in his power to warn them, he is a criminal, a traitor to his high trust. People may croak, “Pessimism,” to his faithful cry; in optimistic security they may slumber on; but the break of the last barrier against destruction dooms them to death, and they perish, victims of foolish fancies.

The old world is in sin. It has been in sin for six thousand years. In the face of ever-increasing knowledge and light, it is piling up its mountains of sin and wrong, combustibles for the fires of the last day. The great tides of evil are breaking thru the human dikes of creed and covenant and compromise. The earth is waxed old as a garment grows old. God is about to change it. Its doom is nigh. Nor optimistic dreams, nor resolutions of peace congresses, nor proclamations of church councils will stay the tides or avert the destruction. The salvation of earth is thru its purifying fires. The salvation of men is in the cleansing, keeping, ruling power of Jesus Christ. God’s message to the world is, “Cry aloud, spare not; lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression;” “blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain; let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand.” Now this may be called “pessimism,” but it is a merciful, honest, sensible, divine, saving message of salvation to all who believe.