We Are Going Forward by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 21, 1914

We Are Going Forward

By C. M. S.

THERE is a note of victory in the camp of Israel. The people of the Lord are going forward, and the leaders are taking the lead. None can fail to be convinced of this who have been reading the reports of our ministerial institutes published from time to time in the REVIEW. The reports are inspiring to us who read them; but those who have attended the meetings have received an inspiration that cannot be measured by any human instrument, and whose influence will tell mightily for the progress of this message in every field to which these workers go.

The unanimity of these reports in showing the real spiritual uplift that has characterized these meetings is a source of great encouragement to us. It indicates that God is giving his people a special preparation in view of their increasingly

difficult work. While we may expect to see the wrath of the enemy more and more strikingly manifest as we draw nearer to the consummation of the work, we may expect also to see God manifest his presence and his leading in equally striking ways. He will never revoke his promise to be with his faithful followers straight through to the end of the controversy. Difficulties may tower high, but God's providences will find a way for his little flock around or over or through them. The enemies of the truth may be many and active, but the angels of God, his ministering servants, are more than they, and will wield the power of God mightily in thwarting the adversary and bringing deliverance to his people.

If we were in this work alone, depending upon our own leading and protection, we might well tremble for our safety both here and hereafter. We know that the forces of the adversary are mobilizing for the final conflict. There are organizations numbering their members by the hundreds of thousands which the enemy will use as divisions of a great army for physical attack and coercion and oppression when he considers that the time is ripe for so doing. And will not God fit his people for such a season?—Most certainly he will. He is doing it now.

This work of special preparation has begun with the leaders and more active workers, the ministers, the Bible workers, the canvassers, and the colporteurs. Through them it will be carried to the rank and file of the people. They who step into the channel of God's providence in this matter God will prepare for the trials of that time. They who hold aloof will be unfitted, unprepared, and unable to stand. It is no time now to be lukewarm, half-hearted, world-loving. It does no good to walk toward the mountains if we keep our eyes fixed on Sodom. Thousands of Seventh-day Adventists are attending Sabbath school occasionally, spending one hour a week in the regular Sabbath service, omitting the prayer meeting generally or entirely, doing nothing to bring others into the truth, and maintaining a vague notion that some time Jesus will come and carry them home to heaven.

But he will never do it. When he comes, he will bring his reward with him, and will 'render to each man according as his work is.' When he comes, he will say, 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant,' to every one whom he rewards with eternal life. No one will go with him to the mansions of the blessed whose Christian experience and Christian activities have been summed up in sitting still one hour a week in a comfortable pew and listening to a sermon. Christ will say "Well done" to those alone who have done well their part in speeding his message in the earth and advancing the interests of his kingdom here.

It is indeed time to awake out of sleep, to buckle on the armor and demonstrate to both friends and enemies that we are actually on the firing line, enlisted in God's service till the end. There is not a soul among us who does not need this preparation, and none of us can get it for somebody else. No one can have it just because some one else has it. Your having it does not lessen the necessity of my having it. This is an individual work. Just as the wedding guest could not go into the wedding without the wedding garment on, so no individual can go through the trying experiences before this people who does not have the preparation that God designs to give his people to fit them for that time and those experiences. There must be a willingness on our part to receive it, a pressing together in his service, a faithfulness and a diligence in accepting every means of grace, a desire to be in touch with God every hour of the day, and a glad willingness to be used in any way that he may choose. The lack of these things cannot be made up by merely having our names on the church books, attending divine service once a week, and bearing the reproach of 'keeping Saturday for Sunday.' So far as it affects our prospect of eternal life, we might as well be active in the service of Satan as to be slothful in the service of Christ. Either would shut us out of the kingdom.

The writer had the privilege of attending the ministerial institute for the Columbia Union Conference, held at Baltimore, Md., and through the work of that institute saw as never before the guiding providence of God at work, fitting his people for the last epoch of the history of sin. The instruction given in all lines was timely and heart-searching.

Ministers who have been teaching this truth for years, went from that institute with a far deeper sense of the solemnity of the message they hear than they had ever had before. They were made to realize the sacredness of their calling and the far-reaching consequence of faithfulness or unfaithfulness in their ministry.

Young men just entering the work of the ministry were given a broader and deeper view into the meaning and the responsibilities of that sacred calling, and were caused to see the necessity of a full surrender of heart, a complete renunciation of sin and worldliness, and a fixed purpose to be faithful stewards of the things of God.

In the Bible work, the young people's work, and the canvassing work, the instruction given and the interchange of experiences and views helped to consolidate and unify the work, and make the efforts of each individual in his special line of work much more effective for the advancement of the cause. There was continually held before these workers the aim of the denomination,—the winning of souls for Christ. "Every member a soul winner," read the motto; and the testimonies of these earnest workers indicated that they purposed to make that motto the ruling factor in their lives.

As these workers now go out into the field and to their churches, the influence of the institute will make itself felt. Let us as a people rally as one man to the standard set. Let us present a solid front to the enemy. Let us break away from the allurements of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and swing into line with a purpose to be God's minutemen, anxious to receive from him what he has to give, and ready to follow his leading wherever it may take us. The cause is going forward; the people of God are going forward; shall you and I go forward with it and with them? May God help us to decide aright, and having decided, to stand firm and loyal to the end, bringing with us many sheaves from the harvest fields of this world. C. M. S.