p. 330 | Two Great Compromises

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 26, 1883

Two Great Compromises.

SOME Adventists profess to believe, and they say, that “the Lord may come at any time; he may come this day.” But we are not of that number. All Seventh-day Adventists believe that great and stirring events, both in America and in Europe, must take place before the Lord comes. Many prophecies remain to be fulfilled prior to the advent.

When we make this statement, those who do not believe with us accuse us of being among those who say, “My Lord delayeth his coming.” But we do not believe in setting any time for the Lord’s coming. Delays are generally reckoned, from some* time appointed for a person to come; if the time passes by, and he does not come, there is said to be a delay. We have never set any time, nor suffered our mind to question in regard to the time. “There is no time in the Third Angel’s Message.” At this conclusion we arrived when we first studied the message, which was more than thirty years ago. We also heard it declared in a powerful manner some years afterward, and we have long been rooted and grounded in that faith. Not “the time,” but “the signs of the times” were given to the disciples, whereby they might “know that he is near, even at the doors.”

We do not assert that a person may not fulfill that saying of our Lord, concerning his supposed delay, without having any time set for his coming. He may think that it is very near, and after some time passes, he may relapse into coldness and neglect because so much time has passed and the Lord has not appeared. We fear that many are in that condition now. Their lives, their worldly calculations, show that they say in their heart, “My Lord delayeth his coming.” Such are in peculiar danger. They have placed themselves where they may never be aroused to a sense of their dangerous condition until it is too late to remedy their great mistake; that day may come upon them unawares.

Seventh-day Adventists have always believed that great and important events are to transpire before the coming of the Lord, both in the work of God and in the working of Satan among the people of all the nations. But to us the work of God occupies the first place in the field of observation. We have said, and we repeat it, that whatever may take place among the nations; whatever preparations for war may be made by the Governments of the earth; whatever wars may break out and for a time fill the world with fear, they do not, any and all of them, lead us to expect the immediate coming of the Lord unless the work of God in the message be also accomplished. Here is where they are constantly deceiving themselves who look to the nations alone—perhaps to the fate of Turkey—to afford evidence of the near coming of our Lord. They have no special message or present truth. They have no special work of God to watch. Their watching is of the things of the earth; and, rejecting those scriptures, those warnings and duties, which specially relate to and are given for the present time, they cannot possibly understand how the Lord holds these things in check to the accomplishment of his work of grace for the remnant. By watching only the progress of the things of the earth, their interest becomes gradually linked to earthly matters. Besides this, in rejecting the last, the special message of the advent faith (Rev. 14:9–12), they have cast off the restraining influence of the law of God, the ten commandments, and their being is so far removed from the refining influence of God’s Spirit. The commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ are associated in the lives and characters of the remnant. Rev. 12:17. And they who lack the Spirit of God must be lacking in that discernment which is necessary to understand the signs of the times.

We verily expect that a great disappointment will come upon all those professed Adventists who reject the Third Angel’s Message of Rev. 14. Their minding of the things of the world subjects them to disappointments now, for nothing is yet to be determined by these things. They can at best only approximate the truth in regard to the advent near; and they will find themselves at last just outside the true line of observation and of safety. Thus, some looked to Napoleon III. as “the destined monarch of the world;” and when he started out in his war against Prussia they predicted his speedy triumph over all the nations of Europe! We pitied them in their blindness then, even more than we pitied them in the crushing of their cherished opinions and hopes in the imprisonment and death of their ideal hero. Even as we write we look into a professed Adventist paper and read the following words:—

“I learned the other day that the Rothschilds had come in possession of Jerusalem at last, that they had closed the mortgage. Oh, joyous news! Let us watch the moving of the nations now.”

This is little short of fanaticism; an overjoy in human theories which will only end in disappointment and regrets. “Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.” We are looking for “a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” A city whose gates will open to them “that do his commandments.” (Rev. 22:14), but which the gold of the Rothschilds cannot purchase. “The poor of this world” may inherit it, and rejoice in its glory, when “Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children,” shall be cast out with those who build their hopes on her.

The work of God which is to be carried on to its completion before the second advent, is exactly parallel to that which was committed to John the Baptist at the first advent,—“to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Luke 1:17. When we look at the consecration, the measure of holiness, necessary to pass safely through the time of trouble, and “to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord” (Eze. 13): when we consider that, prior to the advent, every case will be decided, and the filthy and unjust must ever remain so, because the priesthood and intercession of the blessed Saviour will end before he comes the second time, we can readily see that the churches, the professed Christians of this day, are not prepared for that great event. They are filled with pride and ambition and worldliness; allied to the world, and its fashions, and follies, and selfish methods. They court the influence and power of the world as a means of exalting themselves and their dogmas to a high place in the world. Losing sight of the power of the truth and Spirit of God as the sole means of enlightening and reforming the world, they ask the votes of the impenitent masses, and the acts of legislatures, to give Christian character and standing to the nation and to communities! Yet, confident in their worship and in their own sincerity, they see not the end to which they are hurrying on.

The Pharisees thought they were the very ones to whom God should commit his treasures of knowledge—to whom the Messiah would accord special honor in the work of redeeming his people. Standing at the head of the church, as teachers and leaders of the people of God, they knew as little of the nature of the foretold work of God’s anointed as they did of the corruptions of their own hearts. They longed for the restoration of the kingdom of God among them, but it must be by methods of their own choosing, and by means consistent with their own ambitious desires. They merged all the prophecies of the promised “seed of the woman” into one advent, the object of which was, as they had persuaded themselves to believe, to redeem them from the bondage of Roman domination. But the bondage of sin, of the corruptions of a fallen nature and a carnal heart, they did not feel. When the Messiah came, meek and lowly, announcing that the kingdom of Heaven was for the poor in spirit, and was not of this world, that such righteousness as that possessed by the Scribes and Pharisees gave no title to it; that pomp in religion and a high position in this life already have their reward in the praise of this world, and can have no part in the kingdom, they rejected him as a matter of course. There was peculiar force in his question, “How can ye believe, which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor which cometh from God only?”

This history is unfortunately repeated in the present position of the religious world. The wise and learned leaders in the churches—the modern Scribes and Pharisees—have turned all the prophecies of the coming of the Messiah into one advent, the object of which was to supersede the law, to offer the true sacrifice, and to enter upon his ministry. A second advent, with all its glories and glorious results to the little flock, is ignored, or spiritualized, or so belittled by theories of present-age glory, that it is no longer esteemed as “that blessed hope.” Titus 2:11–13. To neglect a practical truth is the same as to reject it. The doctrine of the second advent is truly rejected by the mass of professed Christians in their rejection of the message of warning and of duty which is given to prepare us for that all-important event. Shutting their eyes to the signs of the times, which the Saviour gave in order that we may know when he is near, and turning away from the commandment to know when he is near, even at the door, and unmindful of the example of those who knew not when the flood was coming, in the days of Noah, they are exactly in a condition to be led captive by the deceptions of the enemy, and to have that day come upon them unawares.

In the final conflict there will be but two classes known, as but two classes are recognized now in the Scriptures which relate to that time. At the present time there are many parties, both for and against religion. But as the lines are drawn, and the time of trouble draws near, the opposing forces will be so allied by compromises that they will compose one party. The true people of God will also be united, not by compromises, but by entire submission to God’s plan; by complete rejection of all false theories and traditions, and an earnest acceptance of “the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14:9–12.

In advocating the truths of the Bible contained in this message, the claims of the Sabbath of the Lord and the doctrine of the advent near, we have continually laid before our readers the position of those who will be prepared to stand before the Son of man at his appearing. It is our purpose now, in a few articles, to notice the opposing work, which we place under the head of “Compromises,” in America and in Europe. The message of warning for both continents—for all the world—is found in Rev. 14:9–12. The work of the enemies of God—the opposers of this message, especially as it relates to the United States—is pointed out in Rev. 13. To this we will call the attention of our readers next week. Years ago objections were presented to our views, because the objectors did not believe it possible that the parties indicated in our expositions would act as they must act to fulfill this prophecy. They did not understand that these things would be carried out by compromises, and we could then offer them no proof beyond the mere exposition of the prophecy, which we believed to be sure because we believed we had the truth of the message. Now events are so shaping as to make it evident to every impartial inquirer for truth, that, not only is our exposition a reasonable one—the true one—but, the events foretold are on the very eve of their full accomplishment. May God give us wisdom to read and understand.