BY ELDER J. H. COOK.
San Diego, Cal.
As early as: 1856, in vol. 1, p. 141, we find the first “testimony” on this subject: “Said the angel to the church, ‘Jesus speaks to thee, “Be zealous and repent.”‘ This work, I saw, should be taken hold of in earnest. There is something to repent of. Worldly-mindedness, selfishness, and covetousness have been eating out the spirituality and life of God’s people.”
In 1859, vol. 1,p. 185, three years later, a second “testimony” is given: “The message to the Laodiceans has not accomplished that zealous repentance among God’s people which I expected to see.” Again, on p. 186, it is said concerning this message: “It is designed to arouse the people of God, to discover to them their backslidings, and to lead to zealous repentance, that they may he favored with the presence of Jesus, and be fitted up for the loud cry of the third angel. . . . Angels were sent in every direction to prepare unbelieving hearts for the truth. The cause of God began to rise, and his people were acquainted with their position. If the counsel of the True Witness had been fully heeded, God would have wrought for his people in greater power.”
In 1873, vol. 3, p. 253, the third “testimony” on this subject breaks the slumber of the people of God, with these startling words: “The message of the True Witness finds the people of God in a sad deception, yet honest in that deception. They know not that their condition is deplorable in the sight of God. While those addressed are flattering themselves that they are in an exalted spiritual condition, the message of the True Witness breaks their security by the startling denunciation of their true condition of spiritual blindness, poverty, and wretchedness.” Page 254: “I was shown that even this decided message of the True Witness had not accomplished the design of God. The people slumber on in their sins. They continue to declare themselves rich, and having need of nothing.”
Now comes the fourth warning, in the Review Extra. (Thirty-five years have elapsed since the first, thirty-two since the second, and seventeen since the third.) This bears the Sad intelligence that ‘‘we have lost our first love.” “Displeasure of the Lord is against his people.” We misrepresent the character of Christ. “Many churches have no light.” Many are grieving away the Spirit for the last time. Solemn, indeed, are these statements. Then the conclusion four times repeated. Rev. 2:5; ”Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.” How sad the thought that after thirty-five years of patient waiting on the pat of the Lord, he finds our spiritual condition in no wise improved, but our “first love gone.” What could we expect but a statement that would indicate the forbearance of God nearly at an end, and he almost ready to say of us, as he said of the barren fig tree, “Cut it down; why’ cumbereth it the ground?”
From every consideration we must come to the conclusion, that the patient forbearance of God is about to cease. (1891) But, I am truly thankful that this timely warning has broken in on our slumbers. May it be successful in awakening every soul to that zealous, earnest repentance that will bring a return of our first love, that will warm up and infuse life and power from God that will cement the people of God in one, and thus prepare the way for the loud cry of the third angel. I write this to stir up thought on this subject, and a desire to investigate more closely what the Lord has said concerning it, that we individually may see the urgent necessity of a deep work of repentance that will restore to us the joys of his salvation, and prepare us to successfully carry forward this work of God in triumph, and with it gain the victory.
Advent Review And Sabbath Herald May 5, 1891
Editors Note:
“The absence of harmony with God becomes apparent. The light grows dim, goes out; the candlestick has been removed. There is much exercising of man-made authority by those to whom God has not given his wisdom because they did not feel the need of the wisdom from above.”
RH, July 16, 1895