SIGNS OF THE END by Bible Banner

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 10, 1881

SIGNS OF THE END.

By Bible Banner

PERHAPS no age in the Christian era has been so badly cursed with the spirit of compromise as our own. Satan seems to have abandoned the idea of crushing out the church by persecution: he now seeks to court her favor, and thus secure by flattery what he could not gain by force. The most plausible arguments are employed to induce the people of God to give up their positive testimony against popular sins. The arch enemy has no serious objection to the multiplication of churches, provided he is allowed to dictate the policy on which they are to be run. His mightiest energies are exerted to form a peaceful alliance between the church and the world. If he can succeed in dazzling the church with worldly blandishments, decking her with worldly vanities, and setting her on a chase after worldly pleasures, he is abundantly satisfied.

Oh, when shall we have in this favored land a revival of religion so radical and scriptural as to cure the churches of their pride and their pleasure-taking propensities? Considerable effort is made every winter, in almost every community, to arouse the people to a sense of their imperiled condition. Special meetings are held, special sermons are preached, and not unfrequently special "revivalists" are employed to add the weight of their influence in converting sinners from the error of their ways. That some good results from these various efforts we are glad to believe; but the joy of gratitude is too often mingled with sadness, as the spirit of revival seems to be so easily and so soon supplanted by the spirit of revelry. What is the trouble? Can we never get the old gospel plow in deep enough to break up the "fallow ground?" Must we continue the yearly process of skimming over the surface, and, as the result, reap more noxious weeds than grain?

There appears to be a set purpose on the part of many members in our churches—and those, too, who strangely assume to be the only "evangelical" churches in the country—to run these institutions on a worldly-policy basis. They seem willing, if not anxious, to lower the Christian standard to the level of those who are confessedly the enemies of God. A few earnest souls enter their protest against the persistent attempt to form a partnership between Christ and Belial, but their pleadings are either hushed or ignored, and policy proves to be mightier than piety. The prayer-meeting is too often a dry and poorly attended affair, but the place of festivity rings with the joyous shouts of the interested throng. Something is wrong.

Satan himself chuckles in triumph when he beholds consecrated temples of worship turned into scenes of feasting, hilarity, gambling, and worldly traffic. More or less of these foolish and piety-killing performances almost invariably accompany church fairs and festivals. But it is not on this account alone that they are to be condemned. They are wrong in principle. God's people are called to a higher and holier work. They are to renounce the world, deny themselves, and be zealous of good works. Real Christians are expected to support the Lord's cause from the love they bear to it, without any necessity for an appeal to the stomach. When the professed followers of God project a splendid spree, of course the fashion-following and pleasure-loving will gladly pay their money to participate in the fun; but the more thoughtful of the unconverted that are enticed to such places, will retire from the scene with the solemn and perhaps ineffaceable impression that Christianity is a humbug! Alas for the cause of Christ when it falls into the hands of such representatives!

It was long ages ago predicted that in the last days "perilous times" should come. One indication of such times was to be the fact, that those "having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof," would be "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God." Judged by this test of inspiration, where are we to-day? Instead of the church converting the world, is it not terribly true that the world is converting the church? The moral aspect is truly alarming. It is high time for the church to disavow all allegiance to Belial, and to swear eternal fealty to Christ.

—Bible Banner