TO OUR FRIENDS by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Nov 22, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 47.

TO OUR FRIENDS.

By Editor

THERE are many thousands of people throughout the United States who believe in the precious truths of the Bible, heralded to the world by the SIGNS OF THE TIMES. To them we wish to appeal. We wish them to consider these self-evident truths.

1. The time.—We are living "in the last days," "the time of the end," "the day of His preparation." Jesus is soon coming. More than one dozen different lines of prophecy, beginning in different periods of the world's history, dealing with different events or nations, are rapidly bringing us to the very focal point of convergence, Christ's coming. For nearly fifteen hundred years God predicted in His Word various events—a score or more—that were immediately to precede Christ's coming and the end of probation. Within "this generation," this "time of the end," He has written and is writing all these signs again in startling events in the religious, social, political, and physical worlds, and in the heavens, that we may know, as He declared, "When ye shall see all these things, know that He is near, even at the doors." We see them; He is near.

2. The World's Need.—It is in darkness. "Darkness shall cover the earth; and gross darkness the people." How true now are the words of the prophet concerning the prophetic Word: "And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee; and he saith, I can not; for it is sealed; and the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee; and he saith, I am not learned." And so the darkness grows deeper, men more perplexed, divided, confused. The world is sick, physically, spiritually, "desperately sick;" where healed at all it is but slightly. Men are seeking for the healing Balm of Gilead, the Water of Life, and are put off with evolutionary ointment and traditional nostrums. Nay, more, the world is dying, thousands upon thousands around you everywhere. What are you doing to save them? The great harvest of earth is here; the Reaper is coming. What will be their reaping? What will be yours?

3. The Remedy.—God has intrusted it to you, to us; not because we are better, but that we, in gratitude for a great salvation, may carry it to others. We have light for their darkness,—"the more sure word of prophecy, . . . as a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn." Give them the light of a present Gospel. Jesus is the Healer. Do you know Him? Tell the great sick world of the Balm in Gilead, of the Physician there. They are dying; point them to the Life-giver. They are sowing evil seed; tell them what the harvest will be. In the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and in that alone, is the remedy for all earth's ills.

4. The Opportunity.—Many will say: "I can not do this. I can not talk or preach." How do you know? Open the mouth for God; He has promised to fill it. But if you can not, or if you can speak, preach, or exhort, here is an opportunity—to some, doubtless, as giver and receiver, the opportunity—to give the light and healing and life; to some the light and healing and life may come for the last time. The opportunity to which we refer is the circulation of the World's Harvest number of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES. Many of our regular subscribers have received and read it. Mechanically it is well printed for a perfecting press. Its illustrations are good. What it says is in good English. But, more than all these, it contains a whole volume of present, enlightening, saving, healing, life-giving, Gospel truth. You need it; the world needs it. Will you not, dear reader, help us in sowing the precious seed?

"Redeeming the time, because the days are evil," reads Eph. 5:16 in the common version. "Buying up the opportunity," reads the literal Greek. Will you not buy up this opportunity? It may cost ease, pleasure, a little time in business, a small outlay of money. Will you not sacrifice these in order to buy up the opportunity? Are not the days evil? Then do not the words now apply? God will abundantly bless every soul who heeds the Word.

We read in the political newspapers of men who go by rail and team through sun and rain, heat and cold, mud and slush, to speak on politics, while others travel in rain and mud and night for forty or fifty miles to meet and hear a two hours' speech. They think important principles are at stake, but the Gospel campaign is as much more important now and forever as heaven is higher than the earth, and eternity is more than time.

We wish we could publish the great edition free, but we are not able. The publishers have placed it as low as they consistently can, only four cents by wholesale. Hundreds of thousands, could they but be properly shown the paper, would buy it at 10 cents a copy. There they would get the contents of a dollar book, with a good piece of music besides.

"Behold, now is the accepted time [to work for God, to co-operate with Him]; behold, now is the day of salvation [for the world]."