“LET ALL THE PEOPLE SAY, AMEN!”
By J. H. Waggoner
This was the feeling of my heart, and the expression of my lips, as I read Bro. White’s article on the proper observance of the Sabbath, and how to commence and close it. This is a subject of the greatest importance; and all who have had any experience in the third angel’s message can realize it. Some cannot see how it is, or whether it is so, that the doctrine of the advent of our Lord has a bearing on our interest in the observance of the Sabbath. But my testimony is that of one who first found the Sabbath in the third angel’s message of Rev. 14:9-12. My own experience, and a somewhat extensive observation of others, leads me to the conclusion that whenever we suffer our minds to be diverted from the “blessed hope” of the near coming of the Saviour, there is a corresponding decline in our minds from the sacredness of the Sabbath of the Lord. The fact that some who have been trained from childhood to hold the seventh day as holy to the Lord, engage in partnerships where their work is carried on upon the Sabbath, is suggestive on this point. The burden of the message is the Sabbath, as contrasted with “the mark of the beast,” and the message is the special warning to this age. Thus the Sabbath is a very important part of “present truth” to all believers in the message. It is not unreasonable to conclude that the Spirit of God witnesses to a truth according to its timeliness. The Jews believed a great deal of truth; they trusted in Moses and the prophets. But they rejected that part of the Scriptures which had a special bearing on their own times. They knew that God spake unto their fathers, but refused to examine the evidence that he had also a message specially to them. So now; the churches know they have truth. In this they are right. But the truth which they hold does not separate them from the world, nor turn them from its vanities and follies. And this is because they turn away from the “present truth.” They reject the message which the fulfillment of prophecy shows to belong to this age; which contains the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. They have lost all sense of the sacredness of God’s law, and are making a vain effort to unite the service of God and mammon. We cannot doubt that the Spirit of God will entirely leave them if they persist in this course. And now comes another article from the hills of Colorado bringing forth the same response. It is in relation to the mission to England. It has been a subject of inquiry with some why missions are opened in Denmark, Switzerland, Prussia, France, etc., and England, with those speaking our own tongue, has no missionary of the Seventh-day Adventists. It is a good thing to wait on Providence in these matters; but who can doubt, on reading Bro. White’s article on this subject, that the time has fully come to open the work vigorously in Great Britain? And who can fail to rejoice? And who cannot heartily second the effort soon to be put forth in that direction? Nehemiah said, “I am doing a great work.” Much more can this be said by those who are engaged in a work which is to warn the nations, and to prepare a people to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord. May all our actions show that we realize its magnitude and its importance.