Review and Herald, Vol. 93, No. 14. (3/16/1916)

Review and Herald

Mar 16, 1916

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 16, 1916

God Cares! Do We?

By Dr. A. J. Gordon

Forget not that your first and principal business as a disciple of Christ is to give the gospel to those who have it not. He who is not a missionary Christian will be a missing Christian when the great day comes of bestowing the rewards of service. Therefore ask yourselves daily what the Lord would have you do in connection with the work of carrying the news of salvation to the perishing millions. Search carefully whether he would have you go yourself to the heathen, if you have the youth and fitness required for the work. Or, if you cannot go in person, inquire diligently what blood mortgage there is upon your property in the interest of foreign missions, how much you owe to the heathen because of what you owe to Christ for redeeming you with his precious blood. I warn you that it will go hard with you, when your Lord comes to reckon with you, if he finds your wealth hoarded up in needless accumulations instead of being sacredly devoted to giving the gospel to the lost.—Dr. A. J. Gordon.

Special Mention

By J. R. FERREN

The Burning of the College View — Branch of the Pacific Press Publishing Association

SUNDAY morning, February 27, just as we were finishing our usual worship, Brother F. F. Byington detected the odor of fire. He opened the stock room door adjoining our business office, and a blinding cloud of smoke poured in upon our assembled workers. The fire had evidently started in the basement, where the heating plant was located, and had already burned through the floor.

The alarm was given. The local fire company responded quickly, as did also one company from Lincoln, who made the five-mile run in eight minutes. But the fire had already gained such headway that in spite of the very best efforts of both companies, it enveloped the entire building almost immediately. It was with great difficulty that the adjoining buildings were saved. The smoke was so dense that, when a person was once out, it was dangerous to reenter the building; therefore but little could be done to save its contents. Only the adding machine, four typewriters, and an office chair were carried out. Several of the employees lost their coats and hats.

COLLEGE VIEW BRANCH OF THE PACIFIC PRESS PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION

Fortunately, all the mailing lists for our periodicals were saved, as were also valuable records contained in the safe. Our plates in a vault separate from the building are, of course, intact. A portion of our signatures are kept in a separate building on the rear of the lot, and these were also saved. Everything else—our entire stock of books, tracts, and Bibles, inventoried at about $8,000; our machinery plant; paper stock, including a $2,000 carload of paper just received; editorial libraries; and all in the way of office equipment—was lost. The total loss will be in the vicinity of $30,000. Our insurance is a little over $20,000. The adjuster has not arrived, so we are not able to state the net loss.

Our Present Plans

We immediately telephoned to Kansas City, knowing that both H. H. Hall and S. N. Curtiss were there. They came on the first train, and are still with us, assisting in making temporary plans for our work. This week's papers will be printed in Lincoln, and as our lists are intact, will go forward with only a few days' delay. These are the Deutscher Arbeiter, the German church paper; the Evangelisches Sendebuch, the Danish-Norwegian missionary paper; and the Tidens Tecken, the Swedish weekly Signs of the Times. The Christlicher Hausfreund will be mailed on time.

The cashier of the Bank of College View, Mr. S. J. Quantock, invited us to make our temporary headquarters over the bank, which adjoins our ruins. Pres. H. A. Morrison of Union College has given our editors a large, pleasant room in the main building of the college, where they are hard at work preparing new copy. Their manuscript, translations, and copy of every description were destroyed. Under these trying conditions we feel that these men ought to be especially remembered in our prayers.

Brother Curtiss brought with him copies of the inventories of the books, tracts, and pamphlets in all foreign languages which are on hand at our various depositories throughout the United States. We have also similar lists from some tract societies. All these stocks are being listed so that orders can be promptly forwarded to offices having stock. This enables us to act as a clearing house for foreign literature, just as we have done heretofore. Therefore let no one withhold orders, as we believe the stock available will tide us over until we can reprint. Our latest German, Danish-Norwegian, and Swedish catalogues and tract announcements had just been put into the hands of our tract societies, and may be relied upon as giving up-to-date lists of our publications in these languages.

The Help Needed

The work which has called this institution into being—the preparation and circulation of literature in foreign languages in this country—will go forward. We have faith to believe that this very calamity will awaken the interest of our foreign-speaking brethren and sisters to renewed missionary activity. Letters and telegrams already received indicate that this is the case. We are appealing to them to help us by sending in good lists of subscriptions to our missionary papers, and by supplying themselves more liberally than ever before with the tracts, pamphlets, and books in their various languages.

Will not our English brethren and sisters everywhere respond to a similar appeal? In nearly every community there live foreigners to whom the message should be carried in their own language. Instead of becoming disheartened because of the loss which has been sustained, will not our people everywhere take a new interest in the circulation of our foreign literature? This is what will bring out of this loss a great blessing to our work among the foreigners in this country. May we not, therefore, expect this help from you? J. R. FERREN.

British and Foreign Bible Society Annual Meeting

The one hundred seventh annual meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society has been held. The president is the Marquis of Northampton. The year was a record one for the number of Bibles, Testaments, and separate books of the Bible which have been distributed. There was an increase of 137,000 copies, bringing the number to nearly seven millions.

The Value of Our Publications

NEARLY every mail brings to the REVIEW assurances of its helpfulness in keeping families together in the message. The following was recently received, and represents a large number bearing practically the same testimony in behalf of all our publications:—

“This truth came to me by reading ‘Bible Readings,’ secured of Sister H. P. Holser in the city of Minneapolis, Minn., in 1886. I have taken the leading periodicals of this denomination since that time. These papers have been the means of helping me in rearing my six children, who are all in the truth. I have always been interested in our periodicals and books, and I think they far surpass anything of the kind in any other denomination. I lent many pages of our literature to those not of our faith, and they were appreciated. Some have asked me for the Temperance Instructor, to use in getting up temperance programs. I enjoy studying my Sabbath school lesson with the aid of the Sabbath School Worker. No cheap literature has ever come into our home. I believe one of the reasons why many of our young people are in the world is because their parents have not appreciated the real value of our good church papers. My renewal for the good old REVIEW will soon be made.”

“The Remnant Church Not Babylon”

By F. M. W.

The great threefold message recorded in Revelation 14 is both positive and negative in its character. It is positive in that it proclaims great, positive, up-building truths. It proclaims the imminence of the judgment. It calls upon men to fear God and give glory to him, and to worship the Creator of the heavens and the earth. It develops a people who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. It is negative in that it sounds a warning against Babylon and her false doctrines, against the beast and his image, and the reception of his mark.

What is represented by the term “Babylon”? A study of Revelation 17 shows that this is the term which inspiration applies to the great worldly church. Primarily it refers to the Church of Rome as symbolized by the woman sitting upon the scarlet-colored beast with seven heads and ten horns. But this woman was a mother,—a mother of daughters who followed in her steps and did after her ways. These daughters of Babylon must refer to some of the great religious organizations which have forsaken the Lord and are following in the footsteps of the Roman Catholic Church.

Are the church and people whom Heaven has raised up to sound this warning against the false doctrines of the Babylonian church, included in this classification? Such a conclusion is unthinkable, and would be entirely contrary to the whole tenor and character of the teaching of the Scriptures. On the contrary, the Word teaches that those who sound the warning against the beast and his image, and who refuse the reception of his mark, are found on Mt. Zion at last, with the Father’s name written in their foreheads. Rev. 14: 1-5; 15: 1-3.

But notwithstanding the plain statements of the Scriptures as to the final outcome of the controversy and the triumph of those who uphold the claims of God’s law against the persecuting powers of earth represented by the beast and his image, at different times in the history of this movement the claim has been made that the Seventh-day Adventist Church should be classed under the term “Babylon,” the same as the great formal system of Christianity in the world. Some have charged that the call of God to his children to come out of Babylon includes a call for devout believers to separate themselves from the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

And strange as it may seem, perverted and garbled statements from the Spirit of prophecy have been used to bolster up this position. As early as 1845 this claim was put forth, and considerable agitation was aroused, particularly in the New England States. When steps were taken for a denominational organization, some of the believers feared that this step would bring about a Babylonian state of the church. Later, however, all these believers came to see that proper organization did not constitute the church Babylon, but that professed Christianity took on this character through “the wine of the wrath of her fornication,” or in other words, through the false doctrines which Babylon held, and the evil practices which she tolerated.

Still later, in 1893, a movement of transitory existence and small influence was started in the Northwest, and publications were issued in which the claim that the Seventh-day Adventist Church was Babylon was very zealously advocated.

In a continued article, entitled “The Remnant Church Not Babylon,” published in the REVIEW AND HERALD of Aug. 22 and 29 and Sept. 5 and 12, 1893, the servant of the Lord spoke in a very definite manner of the influence attending such movements, and the relation which the children of God should sustain to them. In this article we have a clear definition of what constitutes the religious system represented by the term “Babylon:”—

“It is our individual duty to walk humbly with God. We are not to seek any strange, new message. We are not to think that the chosen ones of God who are trying to walk in the light, compose Babylon. The fallen denominational churches are Babylon. Babylon has been fostering poisonous doctrines, the wine of error. This wine of error is made up of false doctrines, such as the natural immortality of the soul, the eternal

torment of the wicked, the denial of the preexistence of Christ prior to his birth in Bethlehem, and advocating and exalting the first day of the week above God’s holy, sanctified day. These and kindred errors are presented to the world by the various churches, and thus the scriptures are fulfilled that say, ‘For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.’”—Review and Herald, Sept. 12, 1893.

Sister White declares that definite light was given her as to the character of this movement charging that the Seventh-day Adventist Church was Babylon. In the REVIEW of Aug. 22, 1893, she says:—

“I have had light to the effect that the position taken by Brother — and his sympathizers, is not true, but one of the ‘lo here’s’ and ‘lo there’s’ that will characterize the days in which we are living.”

The attempted use of the Testimonies to bolster up and support this erroneous theory was plainly condemned. Regarding this the servant of the Lord makes this statement in the REVIEW of Aug. 29, 1893:—

“It will be found that those who bear false messages will not have a high sense of honor and integrity. They will deceive the people, and mix up with their error the Testimonies of Sister White, and use her name to give influence to their work. They make such selections from the Testimonies as they think they can twist to support their positions, and place them in a setting of falsehood, so that their error may have weight, and be accepted by the people. They misinterpret and misapply that which God has given to the church to warn, counsel, reprove, comfort, and encourage those who shall make up the remnant people of God.

“Those who receive the Testimonies as the message of God, will be helped and blessed thereby; but those who take them in parts, simply to support some theory or idea of their own, to vindicate themselves in a course of error, will not be blessed and benefited by what they teach. To claim that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is Babylon, is to make the same claim as does Satan, who is an accuser of the brethren, who accuses them before God night and day. By this misusing of the Testimonies, souls are placed in perplexity, because they cannot understand the relation of the Testimonies to such a position as is taken by those in error; for God intended that the Testimonies should always have a setting in the framework of truth.”

But in meeting this delusion in 1893, Sister White did not content herself alone with giving general instruction regarding the question involved. She

made a direct and earnest appeal to the leader of the movement. This appeal, in the form of a personal letter, was printed in the REVIEW of Sept. 12, 1893, and from this letter we make the following quotations:—

“My brother, I learn that you are taking the position that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is Babylon, and that all that would be saved must come out of her. You are not the only man whom the enemy has deceived in this matter. For the last forty years, one man after another has arisen, claiming that the Lord has sent him with the same message; but let me tell you, as I have told them, that this message you are proclaiming, is one of the satanic delusions designed to create confusion among the churches. My brother, you are certainly off the track. . . . If you are teaching that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is Babylon, you are wrong. God has not given you any such message to bear. Satan will use every mind to which he can attain access, inspiring men to originate false theories, or go off on some wrong tangent, that he may create a false excitement, and thus divert souls from the true issue for this time. I presume that some may be deceived by your message, because they are full of curiosity and desire for some new thing.”

The manner in which our brethren and sisters related themselves to this movement was not considered at that time a light matter. The question involved eternal issues, and our brethren and sisters were earnestly urged to turn from these fanciful interpretations, and take their stand squarely on the Word of truth. The following quotation is representative of the earnest warnings given to the church by the servant of the Lord in that period of our history:—

“Those who start up to proclaim a message on their own responsibility, who, while claiming to be taught and led of God, still make it their special work to tear down that which God has been for years building up, are not doing the will of God. Be it known that these men are on the side of the great deceiver. Believe them not. They are allying themselves with the enemies of God and the truth. They will deride the order of the ministry as a system of priestcraft. From such turn away, have no fellowship with their message, however much they may quote the Testimonies and seek to intrench themselves behind them. Receive them not: for God has not given them this work to do.”—Id., Sept. 5, 1893.

History repeats itself. As apostasies have arisen in the church in the past, so we shall witness in the days to come many strange movements. “The Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.” This is the word of divine revelation. Some perhaps whom we have looked upon as trusted leaders will depart from the Lord. If the foundation of our faith rests in these men, if we have built upon their word in place of the Word of God, then when they fall, we shall fall likewise. Says the servant of the Lord:—

“Many a star that we have admired for its brilliancy, will then go out in darkness. Chaff like a cloud will be borne away on the wind, even from places where we see only floors of rich wheat.”

But at this time the record is:—

“When the trees without fruit are cut down as cumberers of the ground, when multitudes of false brethren are distinguished from the true, then the hidden ones will be revealed to view, and with hosannas range under the banner of Christ.”—Testimonies for the Church, Vol. V, p. 81.

We must recognize that “God has a church upon the earth, who are his chosen people, who keep his commandments. He is leading, not stray offshoots, not one here and one there, but a people. The truth is a sanctifying power; but the church militant is not the church triumphant. There are tares among the wheat. ‘Wilt thou then that we gather them up?’ was the question of the servant; but the master answered, ‘Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.’ The gospel net draws not only good fish, but bad ones as well, and the Lord only knows who are his.”—Mrs. E. G. W., in Review and Herald, Sept. 12, 1893.

The sifting process is now going on. The chaff is being separated from the wheat, the dross from the pure gold. May we have grace and wisdom to stand stanchly and bravely for the faith that is in Christ Jesus. Established in his eternal truth, no theories of men will be permitted to deceive us, no winds of false doctrine to loose us from our anchorage. His truth will prove a bulwark and a rock of defense. F. M. W.

Swallowing Camels

By G. B. T.

SPEAKING to the Pharisees of his time, the Saviour said, “Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.” Matt. 23: 24. In these words the Saviour gives a solemn warning against a tendency of the human heart, which is especially manifest in the lives of those who have lost their own spiritual eyesight. These blind guides, while usually quite concerned over the nonimportant things which have to do with the outward appearance of sanctity, are often full of vileness within. They “strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.”

This is well illustrated in an incident which I read recently. A lady in one of the foreign capitals left her friends, and engaged a hack to take her home. The driver, instead, drove her to a lonely part of the city, murdered her for her jewels, and threw her body into the canal. When arrested shortly afterward, and asked why he did not eat of some pie which the woman had in her basket, the murderer said, “It was Lent. How could I think of eating that! It may have contained meat, and I am, thank God, a good Christian.”

The Pharisees stood in the market place, and with feigned humility prayed, yet cherished in their hearts the selfish desire of having the uppermost room at feasts. They made long, sanctimonious prayers, as is common to hypocrites, yet robbed the widows of their homes. Their outward appearance was clean, they looked like true believers, and were very zealous for the law and for all the traditions and rules of the church, while their hearts were full of extortion and excess. They were tithe payers, even down to the most fractional part, and could criticize those who in their judgment failed in this divine obligation; but they left undone the weightier matters of the law—judgment, mercy, and faith. Though strict tithe payers, they were cold, harsh, and merciless, full of covetousness, and were continually judging those who were far more worthy in God’s sight than themselves. While appearing righteous and straining out every gnat from their own and other people’s experiences, they swallowed without any compunction of conscience the camels of hypocrisy and impiety. They garnished the tombs of the prophets, and with fine speeches and most glowing epithets, held up as an example the pioneers in the church, from the days of Moses down to their own time; yet they criticized unsparingly the greatest Prophet of all times, who was living among them. Finally they stained their hands with the most awful tragedy ever enacted, and while swallowing this camel of sin, assumed all its consequences by saying, “His blood be on us, and on our children.” Well, indeed, might the Son of God denounce such hypocrisy, and ask those who were guilty of it, how they could escape the damnation of hell.

This instruction is for all time. It is written for our admonition. These outcroppings of the natural, deceitful, and depraved heart are still seen. Pharisaism is still manifested among God’s professed people. We need to be warned and admonished, lest we take part in this awful sin, and merit the condemnation and displeasure of him who denounced it. This is one of the things which will interfere with the spiritual progress of the church till the end. It is easy to criticize and pick out supposed flaws in the lives of others—now as then to strain out the gnat and swallow the camel.

When we see in the church some who on a few minor points are not so careful as we think they should be, and cannot take that radical position that we feel clear to take, it is easy to conclude that they are hindering the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, while we ourselves are

carrying in our own hearts the camel of criticism, of judging and condemning others. There is no sin denounced in severer language by the Lord himself, and rebuked more faithfully in the Testimonies, than that of criticizing others. Indeed, it is among the most common sins in the church, and productive of the greatest evils. Those addicted to it are usually quite active in pointing out the mote in the eyes of others, and condemning them, publicly and privately, in the most severe terms, while a beam is in their own eyes.

It is a source of much surprise that this camel of iniquity and sin can be swallowed so easily, can be carried in the heart through months and years without any special remorse. But the admonitions of Jesus show that it is possible, while criticizing others, to be a whited sepulcher ourselves, full of dead bones and of all uncleanness. One may be very particular on some point and yet not be a victorious Christian in some other things of equal importance.

We believe in a high standard, in a particular life, in a life victorious in the smallest things, a life delivered from all sin. We believe the Lord will weigh in the judgment the smallest acts, the secret things of our lives. He will weigh in the balance of the sanctuary the words, thoughts, and motives of the heart, and it is for us to gain the victory over every wrong word and act. But it is not our business to take the place of God and determine who are the saints and who are not. We ought not to seek to assume this prerogative of the Almighty. Those who judge others, we are told, do the very things they condemn. Rom. 2: 1.

We are told to examine ourselves. In this we should do faithful and thorough work. In dealing with ourselves we can be unsparing, and in the secret place lay before the all-seeing eye of God the things that have been revealed in the most remote and secret recesses of the heart, where the cobwebs of sin have long been hidden. We should be careful not to excuse sin in ourselves in the least degree. We should ask God to reveal to us the utmost depravity of the soul; and when revealed, it should be confessed, despised, and forsaken. We should learn to deal with ourselves faithfully and truly, and should realize that other people have consciences, and access to God, and the same light that we have, and are equally accountable to the great Judge. In this way we ourselves shall grow in grace, and the church of God will prosper.

G. B. T.

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