Your ShelfYour Projects

THE NATIONAL FAST

11%

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 15, 1861

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 18, No. 20.

Read the full edition

THE NATIONAL FAST.

By J. M. Aldrich

We are truly living in a grand and solemn time. Our world is preparing for a wonderful finale. The nations are already in distress. Rare events are fast accumulating. The thoughtful mind has no lack of subject for serious contemplation. The Bible student finds relief to doubtful research, through the rapid developments of the age. Prophecy is fast ceasing to be prophecy, and is becoming rather the history of the times in which we live.
Among the important events of the day is our country’s “national fast.” And truly such a fast as has been proclaimed by the highest authority of our great nation, and which has been celebrated so generally throughout our land, may in fact be considered a noteworthy event. A secular paper says of it thus:
“A solemn, sudden pause of a mighty but distracted nation. An apparent calm amid the pelting of an awful storm. From St. Louis to Boston, from Washington to the Northern Lakes, in every city and hamlet, around thousands of church altars, and by a million firesides, the awful pause is felt. It may be said with considerable truth, that yesterday a nation was at prayer. Yesterday a nation was upon his knees before the King of kings.”
Indeed, if such were the case, what an imposing spectacle! “A nation at prayer!” “A nation upon its knees before the King of kings!” Surely if there be no response to such a prayer, it must be because sin lieth at the door. But how is it with our nation? Has she put away her sins? Has she put away the great sin whereof she has been so long guilty? Has she considered the real cause of her present peril, and removed the same forever? or does the blood of four million slaves still cry to God for vengeance? True, she has proclaimed and celebrated her fasts (one at the commencement of the present year), but in doing so has she truly humbled herself before the “King of kings,” and “cried mightily unto God,” and “turned from her evil way,” as did the people of Nineveh when God’s wrath was impending over them? Alas! who will venture to say that she has done thus? Will she not then have occasion to say in the language of the prophet [Isa. lviii], “Wherefore have we fasted and thou seest not? Wherefore have we afflicted our soul and thou takest no knowledge?” And what shall be the response? “Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure and exact all your labors. (Margin, things wherewith ye grieve others.) Behold, ye fast for strife. . . . Will thou call this an acceptable day to the Lord?” But what a homeward thrust is the description of the true fast, that which, and only which, the Lord hath promised to recognize: “Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him? and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?”
Has our nation proclaimed such a fast as this? Nay, verily. Does she wait for proper occasion? Then no longer need she wait. Let her at once consider her “bands of wickedness,” her “heavy burdens,” her “oppressed,” and her “yokes.” Let her consider her “hungry,” and her “poor that are cast out.” Let her do thus and then proclaim such a fast as the Lord hath chosen, and he will answer. His response will be, “Here I am.”
There is indeed a remarkable application of the prophecy contained in this chapter to our own country and to the present time. Our nation is emphatically such a nation as the prophet describes. It “takes delight in approaching to God,” it “asks of him the ordinances of justice,” it “delights to know his ways AS a nation that did righteousness,” &c. What significance in the little word “as.”
But who can fail to see in our national fasts, and in our boasted pretensions to righteousness under the existing state of our nation, the exact counterpart of those counterfeit fasts brought to view in this prophecy? But this is only another sign of the times in which we live. That this prophecy meets its fulfillment at the present time is evident, not only from its exact application, but also from the fact that it is connected with the coming of Christ; and the fact that the coming of Christ is near is also strengthened, or receives additional proof, from the fulfillment of the prophecy. In the next chapter, which is a continuation of the same subject, the prophet says [verses 19, 20], “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and to them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord.” Have we not in fact now arrived at that period when the enemy is coming in like a “flood?” Look at Spiritualism! What greater enemy hath God’s truth than modern Spiritualism? Indeed, how like a flood it is spreading over the land. But while this is true, it is no less certain that the Spirit of the Lord is lifting up a standard against it. What is there so potent against Spiritualism as what we denominate “present truth?” Nothing; no, nothing. Then, may the standard be lifted high. But how glorious is the thought that the Redeemer is surely about to come to Zion! My heart says, Amen. “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”
J. M. ALDRICH.