THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.
By James White
In the good providence of God we are spared to near the close of another Conference year, and are soon to assemble at Battle Creek, at our annual feast of tabernacles. The precious fruits with which God has crowned our labors the past year in the ingathering of souls, call from us expressions of gratitude. In view of the Lord’s tender care for us and for the cause in which we labor, love to him should swell every breast. “Good is the Lord and greatly to be praised,” should be proclaimed by every voice. In the Sacred Record of God’s providential dealings with his people, instances are given of the manifestations of his love and power. And that the people might not forget God, and turn to idolatry, but keep their gracious Deliverer and Benefactor in perpetual remembrance, they were to commemorate these mighty acts of the Lord. By these memorials they called to mind God’s goodness to them in the past, to their profit. We might here mention the Sabbath, which commemorates the Creator’s rest on the seventh day after his work of creation in six days. The great object of the Sabbatic institution was to keep the living God in perpetual remembrance, lest the people forget the Lord and turn to idolatry. As we cease from secular labor and care on the sanctified Rest-day of the Lord, and through the works of his hands in the heavens above, in the earth and in the sea, we are93led to adore the Creator and worship before him; God would be held in perpetual remembrance. “The Sabbath was made for man.” It was instituted for the good of the race. And if the fallen sons and daughters of Adam had always observed this sacred memorial of Jehovah, there could not have been an atheist or an idolater. The passover was observed by the Hebrews for sixteen hundred years as a memorial of God’s great love and power in their deliverance from the house of bondage. When the Lord was about to bring upon Egypt the death of the first-born, the Israelites were directed to slay a male lamb, without blemish, on the fourteenth day of the first month, and strike the blood of the lamb on the two side-posts and on the upper door-posts of their houses. The destroying angel was that night to go on his work of death, and as he should pass through Egypt to slay the first-born of both man and beast, he would see the blood of the lamb upon the doors of the Hebrews, and pass over them as he should go on his mission of slaughter. The annual celebration of the passover called to mind their wonderful deliverance, and thus kept their Deliverer in perpetual remembrance. The same great design is seen in the seven days feast of unleavened bread. At midnight, following the fourteenth day of the month, all Egypt was in terror. The Lord by his angel smote all the first-born of the land, from the house of the king who sat upon the throne of Egypt to the family of the lowest serf, and also the first-born of cattle. Pharaoh and his servants rose up in the night, and there was a great cry in Egypt. Moses and Aaron received the imperative order, “Rise up, and get ye forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go serve the Lord, as ye have said.” The Egyptians were urgent that they should leave Egypt in haste, giving as a reason, lest “we be all dead men.” The departure of the Hebrews was in such haste that they took their dough before it was leavened and their kneading troughs bound up with their clothes upon their shoulders, and of necessity baked heavy cakes of the unleavened dough for breakfast on the morning of the fifteenth day of the month, hence the feast of unleavened bread for sixteen hundred years commenced on the fifteenth day of the month Abib. Leaven was put out of all the houses of the Hebrews for the period of seven days in commemoration of their being thrust out of Egypt in such haste that they had no time to leaven, or raise, their dough. And as their children, who doubtless became tired of eating heavy bread one long week, should inquire the cause, the thrilling history of their deliverance from Egypt should be rehearsed to them, that they might not forget Him who had with a high hand and an outstretched arm brought them from the house of bondage. In harmony with the history and design of the memorials of the Bible, the apostle addresses those who are waiting for the second coming of Christ, in these words: “Call to remembrance the former days, in which after ye were illuminated ye endured a great fight of affliction.” Please go back with us a quarter of a century to the time when we had no church organization, no houses of worship, no tents in the field, no system of benevolence for the support of the ministry, no periodicals or publications of any kind, no Conference, no College, no houses of publication, and only four representatives of the present truth, who spoke only occasionally to small congregations, in private houses, school-houses, halls, and in the groves. Friends of the cause could then be counted by tens, and these were generally very poor. And the men whom God first called to this work were penniless. Then the light that shone upon the track of truth for this time was not as clear as it is to-day, while at the same time prejudice and the spirit of opposition pressed more heavily. In our poverty we were then obliged to labor at chopping wood and mowing grass to earn means to pay traveling expenses to the first two Conferences held in the interest of the Third Angel’s Message. And that our hard-earned dollars might be laid the longest way, we made long journeys in second-class cars, lower decks of steamboats and canal boats. We commenced publishing with means earned by the hardest of labor while suffering from feeble health. Then as we traveled with limited means, we circulated our first publications without money and without price. Thus in humility this great work commenced. The unpopular truths of God’s word connected with the last message of warning to the world were searched out with many prayers and tears, until link after link appeared clear as the noon-day sun, forming the perfect chain of sanctifying truth in which twenty thousand Seventh-day Adventists this day rejoice. And, best of all, God was with the little band of self-sacrificing, trusting ones. Would God that he was with the thousands now as with the few then. While struggling with poverty at that time, when the hand of opposition was heavy upon us, and when undisciplined novices were bringing confusion into our feeble ranks, we would cry unto the Lord in earnestness and faith, and he would bring deliverance, and bright hope would shine upon our path; fanaticism would be checked, and the opposition would be rebuked. Then we could adopt the language of the psalmist, “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say; if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us; then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us; then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul; then the proud waters had gone over our soul. Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth.” Ps. 124:1-6. The work then was attended with difficulties and discouragements at every point and had to be urged forward by main strength and vigilance. Our opponents made work for us, but in every test the Lord gave the victory, and the truth shone clearer than before, so that Seventh-day Adventists are indebted to that candid opposition, which indeed has been scarce, as a means of driving those who have stood for the defense of the truth to study the word more closely, and arm themselves for the battle. J. W.