p. 602 | PREACH GOD'S MESSAGE by Anthony Beans

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 17, 1901

PREACH GOD'S MESSAGE.

By Anthony Beans

ANTHONY BEANS. (Berrien Springs, Mich.)

“The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom. 6:23.

Transgression of God’s law will as surely bring its merited punishment as obedience to the same will yield blessing to him who is exercised thereby.

We have the case of Nineveh and its inhabitants before us for an example. When Nineveh passed the bounds of God’s forbearance, He decided upon its destruction, and sent Jonah the son of Amittai to bear to them the solemn, heart-stirring message, “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed.” His discourse was short, yet it was of sufficient length for those wicked inhabitants to hear the voice of God, and the effect was what could be expected even in our time, if the voice of the message has in it the voice of God to the people: “So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.” Jonah 3:5–9.

The Lord gives a hint as to the condition of the Ninevites when He says, in the last verse of the book, “And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, where are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?” We have to-day an inspired description of not only one city, but of the whole world, in these words, “Darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people.”

“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.” Then follows a list of the causes which make our times perilous: “For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness [church-members], but denying the power thereof.” And here is the Lord’s judgment in regard to them,—“from such turn away.” 2 Tim. 3:1–5.

The effect of Jonah’s message was most significant, and yet it was what he and every other servant of God could expect; for explicit directions had been given by the Lord in these few words, “Preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.”

The conversion of this great heathen city by just one of God’s messengers shows what may be expected to-day when we follow the explicit commands of God. To-day God’s servants are standing face to face with a world doomed to destruction, whose inhabitants must be warned, even as the Ninevites were warned, “whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear.” In Rev. 14:6–12 the Lord gives His servants the only cure for this world’s ills: “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she hath made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the Beast and his Image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the Beast and his Image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.”