WHY ARE WE STUDYING THE MESSAGE?
By L. Flora Plummer
It has been thought best to reprint a few quotations that were published in this department last year when the Circle work began. We need to have our attention called to this instruction many times, that we may realize its force. On page 213, “Testimony for the Church,” No. 32, these statements are made: “The people who claim to obey the truth are asleep. They could not be at ease as they are if they were awake. The love of the truth is dying out of their hearts.” With the double hope of reviving the love of the truth in the hearts that have lost it, and keeping other hearts from losing it, this study is urged upon all. More than this: We have direct statements in “Testimony for the Church,” No. 33, pages 235, 236, concerning such study: “The Lord calls upon all who believe his word to awake out of sleep. Precious light has come, appropriate for this time. . . . This light should lead us to a diligent study of the Scriptures, and a most critical examination of the positions which we hold. God would have all the bearings and positions of truth thoroughly and perseveringly searched, with prayer and fasting. Believers are not to rest in the suppositions and ill-defined ideas of what constitutes truth. . . . As a people we are called individually to be students of prophecy.” And still more than this: In “Gospel Workers,” page 170, we read: “The minds of all should be stored with a knowledge of the truth of God’s word, that they may be prepared, at any moment when required, to present from the storehouse things new and old. Minds have been crippled and dwarfed for want of zeal, and of earnest, severe taxation. The time has come when God says, ‘Go forward, and cultivate the abilities I have given you.’” But especially applicable to our present study is the following, from one of the Special Testimonies: “The books ‘Daniel and the Revelation’ and ‘Great Controversy’ are the books which above all others should be in circulation now.” Another word from the same source is: “God has a special message of warning for this last generation, and he gave wisdom to his servants who studied the prophecies, and679especially to Elder Smith, to write ‘Thoughts on Daniel and the Revelation.’” Another extract, referring to the books mentioned above, says: “Of all the books that have come forth from the press, those mentioned are of the greatest consequence . . . at the present time.” Then, too, we have a suggestion for the present plan of the Reading Circle work, in the following from “Gospel Workers,” page 242: “When the harvest is gathered, and the sowing is over, it is a favorable season for religious work. During the long evenings the lessons of the Scriptures should be carefully studied. Precious opportunities may be improved in conversing and praying together, in relating experiences, in making diligent search of the Bible; by such Christian association we may build up one another in the most holy faith.” Surely no one who reads these extracts will now ask, “Why are we studying the message?”