NECESSITY OF CONSECRATION.
By C. L. Gregory
If there was ever a time when the people of God needed to be entirely consecrated, it is now, when they have reached a point in the last message of mercy to man in which the Macedonian cry, “come over and help us,” is heard from every quarter. The questions ought to come with force to the mind of each member of the various Tract and Missionary Societies, What am I doing to answer these calls and thus bring into the truth some who “are perishing for lack of knowledge”? Have I in the spirit of meekness laid myself, my family, and my property, on the altar? Am I crucified unto the world, and the world unto me? Do I plead with the Lord to bless all my efforts to extend a knowledge of his truth? My dear fellow-missionaries, if this is not the case with us, I think we ought to tarry at Jerusalem until we are imbued with the true spirit of this message. Let us not teach these precious truths with unholy lips, nor touch them with unclean hands. If we do, our efforts will not probably be blessed of the Lord. If any accept the truth and are saved, they may not be stars in the crown of our rejoicing. Our various benevolent associations will not go begging for means, when all the true-hearted are awake to the greatest enterprise, perhaps, of any age, even the preparing of a people to stand without a mediator during the outpouring of the unmixed wrath of God, to stand on the sea of glass, and to “follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.” When this prospect looms up before us, do not our earthly possessions sink into insignificance? or do the words of inspiration apply to us, “How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep; so shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth, and thy want as an armed man.” Prov. 6:9–11. Many of our sisters are fast departing from the modest apparel which formerly adorned them. While professing to believe that a special message has been given them from the Lord concerning this matter, they deny it by their works. Like the Pharisees, “they enlarge the borders of their garments” and thus keep much, even a large sum, from the treasury of the Lord. “Well,” says one, “my influence will be greater if I conform to the customs of the world in a measure.” Others with but little independence go farther. The consequences of such unwise steps, the church has been familiar with and has wept over, in all ages. Conformity to the world opened the way for the papacy, which brought fifty millions of God’s dear children to a martyr’s death. Such ideas are from the enemy of all righteousness, and have caused unknown multitudes to make shipwreck of their faith. Oh! let us not profess, or let us live according to our profession. For the great, the terrible day of the Lord is at hand, when the blood of souls will be found in our garments, if we have not heeded the counsel of the True Witness, and “walked in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.” All who are prepared to say truly, “Dear Saviour, all we have and are, shall be forever thine,” are in a condition to go forth weeping, bearing precious seed; and if they go, they will doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing their sheaves with them. C. L. GREGORY.