The Cause Is Onward by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 21, 1874

The Cause Is Onward.

By James White

We have reached an exceedingly interesting period, one that will be especially noted in the history of the cause of Bible truth. Never has the way opened before our people as it is opening now. And there has not been a time since the commencement of the work that has held out so many encouragements to labor earnestly in the Lord’s cause as the present.

And it also is a time of great spiritual darkness, when discouragements and unbelief press the soul as never before. Satan seems determined to hinder the great work in some way, and leaves no means untried to accomplish his designs. He knows “that he hath but a short time,” that the period to rescue souls from his hands is very brief; hence his efforts to lead those who should be decided, strong, and active, to uncertainty, indecision, and, consequently, to delays. He thus holds the stewards of the Lord from giving of their means necessary to push forward the cause, and delays the servants of God in different ways from striking out at once into the great harvest field. This gives him time to advance his delusions, and fasten precious souls in his snares.

The times demand united, determined, vigorous effort. The cause has been advanced from the very first by sacrifices on the part of its friends and supporters, and such sacrifices must be continued to the close of the work. There have been those among our preachers from the first who seemed to lose the spirit of labor in the message God has given us, and who have been inclined to reach for something new, or to seize upon some point to produce a sensation for a time. Each overaction, and consequent reaction, injures any good cause.

These are not the men to be relied upon to lift when the car of truth moves heavily. You do not know where to find such men in an important religious crisis, unless it is invariably on the wrong side. And the influence of such is always calculated to cast doubt and perplexity into the minds of the real friends and supporters of the cause, and to lead them to withhold their means from its support.

Our views of the two-horned beast of Rev. 13, and of the formation of the image, have been before the world for about twenty years. They are as clear and satisfactory as any views can be of unfulfilled prophecy. In connection with the action of the two-horned beast, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus have a work of great magnitude and vast importance to do. A most solemn warning, upon which the eternal destiny of the world hangs, must be given. This message embraces a large field of fundamental truth to be thoroughly investigated, and intelligently set before the people. And this immense work must be crowded into a brief space of time.

It is true that the prophecy of the two-horned beast suggests great changes, and such as the people are slow to believe will ever take place under a government like ours. And it is also true that the third warning message of Rev. 14 suggests a work of vast magnitude, which would require a millennium to accomplish with the present movements of existing agencies.

And it is also very evident that there must be a better concentrated effort of all our forces in proclaiming the message God has given us, which, with his blessing, will increase the agencies very rapidly, in order to accomplish the work in our time. Too much time has been spent by our stronger men in the minute and almost endless reviews of, and discussions with, opponents who are more anxious for the mastery than to arrive at truth. It has been a poor policy to thus draw out the opposition and educate a host of wily opponents to bring their strength to bear upon our weaker ministers and young disciples.

God has given us a message to proclaim in the ears of the people; and when we go forth unitedly to proclaim it, and leave the opposition more to his goodness and power to overrule, instead of meeting it too much in our own strength, we shall be filling our mission much better, and we shall see the work prospering in our hands.

The part which Satan has to act in the fulfillment of the prophecy, as manifested in spiritualism and the movements of the religious bodies toward a Sunday law, are far in advance of the message.

We watch with a degree of interest the movements of the Religious Amendment party; but we confess far greater solicitude for what our people are doing to fulfill our part of the prophecy than what was done at the Pittsburg Convention. There are plans to be laid, and work to be done by a united, straight forward effort, and we suggest that while we as a people have on hand all the work we can well attend to, there will be no failure on the part of Satan, and those who are to be our determined opponents in the last, closing struggle to fulfill their part of the prophecy.

Young men and young women, by hundreds, should now be under the most direct and advantageous instruction in our school, some in the common branches, some in the languages, and all in those fundamental doctrines of the Bible especially applicable to this time. And broader plans should be laid, and cheerfully carried out, for the extension of the work everywhere. Bro. Matteson has given himself to the work of teaching the truth of God to the Danes, and others are helping him to proclaim it to that people. The Danish monthly should visit thousands of families in our country, and hundreds of copies should find their way to old Denmark. Bro. Carlstedt and Lee are doing what they can for their countrymen, the Swedes, and it should be a pleasure for our people to raise the small sum of $2500 to sustain the Swedish monthly one year, and publish a thousand or more pages of tracts and pamphlets in that language.

And then the cause on the Pacific will soon demand the establishment of a weekly paper devoted to the interests of the cause on this coast. Bro. and sister Van Horn are already in the Walla Walla Valley with their sixty-foot cotton church. And their fellow-laborer, Bro. Canright, with renewed strength and consecration, with the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, has already done good battle here in California. Bro. Loughborough is in the hearts of all our people on this coast, and, after twenty years of hard and unremitting labors in the message, retains his youthful vigor wonderfully, to which he has added the ripe judgment of the experience of his past efficient labors, which make his labors here indispensable.

But the disadvantages of laboring so very far from our only printing house cannot be fully described, or fully realized by our people east of the Plains. It requires from three to five weeks to communicate with our people here through the Battle Creek press.

It has required faith in the message, and in the faithfulness of its friends to enter upon the several enterprises in the past, necessary to the advancement of the work, and, as our faith remains firm in both the message and in its true friends, we venture still.

The evidences which sustain our position are satisfactory. More evidence would not make our people stronger. What is wanting to make these proofs a living reality is that divine assurance from the Spirit of God that well-directed action is sure to bring. Bro. Matteson ventured all upon the message, and God has greatly blessed his labors. Bro. Lee stood the severe trials of his lot, ventured all, and God has greatly blessed him in the work. Where are the men who will take hold of the work for the French and the German people in the same spirit of consecration and confidence? And our American laborers, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, will meet with the same success, and share equally the great blessing of the Lord, by venturing all upon the message. It will be of no use for men to labor in any branch of the work unless they so fully cast themselves upon the Lord, and risk all upon the final triumph of the message, that the Lord will go with them.

It is time that all the servants of the Lord settle down upon the fundamental facts of the message, and so labor as to be able to show as the fruits of their efforts many precious souls rescued from the darkness of the delusive errors of our time. There are those, thank God, who have the solemn burden of the work constantly upon them. They desire the closest union with, and the fullest cooperation of, all their brethren. And although their spirits may have been repeatedly wounded because of a want of this, God will sustain them, and make them strong to bear their double burden if they go forward trusting in him.

The cause is onward. If those who should bear responsibilities fail to come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty, God will lay them aside, and will raise up those who will be true.

Not a few of our more wealthy brethren are drawing back. Some of them are doing nothing in the various enterprises to advance the cause. We shall still have to look to the poorer brethren to sustain the work with their means. If necessary to the advancement of the cause, God will raise up the wealthy and put it into their hearts to give of their abundance. The work is the Lord’s. He will advance it gloriously, and will greatly bless, and finally reward all those who are faithful and true. J. W.