Jeremiah 29:18
And I will persecute them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence, and will deliver them to be removed to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, and an astonishment, and an hissing, and a reproach, among all the nations whither I have driven them:
The verse belongs to Jeremiah's letters to the Hebrew captives in Babylon during the controversy between true and false prophets over the exiles' situation and return. It declares that God's rebellious people will be driven out and delivered to be removed into all kingdoms, becoming a curse, an astonishment, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where they are driven. Their rebellion brings sword, famine, and pestilence whose calamity reverses their former condition as favored by God and feared by surrounding countries, leaving the nation a byword and a hissing. By thus dishonoring its religion, Israel caused its God to be blasphemed among other peoples.
The Jews fulfilled this standing as an astonishment and reproach to the world through a gradual decline in rejecting God's gift in sending His Son. They lost the ability to recognize the gift, then refused its blessings, and at last crucified the Son of God. The same language applies to the Battle Creek church, which became an astonishment and a reproach to the world because it neglected the light and privileges given to it.