The General Conference Bulletin
1900
January 1, 1900
Extracts From Testimonies
“We must let the great principles of the third angel's message stand out clear and distinct. The great pillars of our faith will hold all the weight that can be placed upon them.” GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 1
“The Lord has a special message for us to bear to the world, even the third angel's message. The first and second angel's messages are bound up with the third. The power of the proclamation of the first and second messages is to be concentrated in the third. ‘And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb.’ ‘After these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.’ GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 2
“We are in danger of giving this message in so indefinite a manner that it does not impress the people.” GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 3
“So many other interests are brought in that the very message which should be proclaimed with power becomes tame and voiceless. At our camp-meetings a mistake has been made. The Sabbath question has been touched upon, but has not been presented as the great question, the test for this time. GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 4
“While the churches profess to believe in Christ, they are violating the law which Christ himself proclaimed from Sinai. The Lord bids us, ‘Lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.’ The trumpet is to give a certain sound. GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 5
“At our camp-meetings, when you have a congregation before you for only two weeks, do not defer the presentation of the Sabbath question until everything else is presented, supposing that you are paving the way for it. Lift up the standard, the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Make this the important theme. Then by your strong arguments wall it in, and make it of still greater force. Dwell more on the Revelation. Read, explain, and enforce its teachings. GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 6
“Our warfare is aggressive. Tremendous issues are before us, yea, and right upon us. Let our prayers ascend to God that the four angels may be commissioned to hold the four winds, that they may not blow to injure or destroy until the last warning has been given to the world. Then let us work in harmony with our prayers. Let there be nothing in any of our institutions that will lessen the force of the truth for this time. Present truth is to be our burden. A great work is to be done. The third angel's message must do its work of separating from the churches a people who will take their stand on the platform of eternal truth. GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 7
“Our message is a life and death message, and we must let it appear as it is, the great power of God. We are to present it in all its telling force. Then the Lord will make it effectual. It is our privilege to expect large things, even the demonstration of the Spirit of God. This is the power that will convict and convert the soul.” GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 8
“The Sabbath question is a test that will come to the whole world. We need nothing to come in now to make a test for God's people that shall make more severe for them the test that they already have. The enemy would be pleased to get up issues now to divert the minds of the people, and get them into controversy.” GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 9
“The Sabbath of the fourth commandment is the test for this time, and therefore all connected with this great memorial is to be kept before the people.” GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 10
“We have now the most solemn, important test given to us from the Word of God for this special period of time. This test is for the whole world. The Lord does not require that any tests of human inventions shall be brought in to divert the minds of the people or create controversy in any line.... God's tests are now to stand out plain and unmistakable. There are storms before us, conflicts of which few dream. Nothing should come in to divert our minds from the grand test which is to decide the eternal destiny of a world,—the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 11
“The Lord has a church upon this earth. He has a people who are working with an undivided interest, a people who are dear to his heart because they are consecrated to him. There are also men whose names are on the church books who are not serving God, who are robbing him by withholding the tithes and offerings which he, as the householder, requires as his portion. But because there are tares among the wheat, shall we demerit the church of God?—Never! We may demerit ourselves, but never demerit those who are striving amid temptation and trial. These are the ones whom God loves.” GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 12
“The time is coming when those who have wanted their own way, who have refused to wear the yoke of Christ, will see that they have failed to find the rest that Christ gives; but it will then be too late.” GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 13
“Those who present the idea that the blind, the deaf, the lame, the deformed, will not receive the seal of God, are not speaking words given them by the Holy Spirit. There is much suffering in our world. To some suffering and disease have been transmitted as an inheritance. Others suffer because of accidents. Cause and effect are always in operation in our world, and always will be. The Lord has afflicted ones, dearly beloved in his sight, who bear the suffering of bodily infirmities. Their trials will not be greater than they can endure.” GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 14
“There are living upon our earth men who have passed the age of four score and ten. The natural results of old age are seen in their feebleness. But they believe God, and God loves them. The seal of God is upon them, and they will be among the number of whom the Lord has said, ‘Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.’ With Paul they can say, I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.’ There are many whose gray hairs God honors because they have fought a good fight and kept the faith.... We need, in this age of error, of day-dreaming and reverie, to learn the first principles of the doctrine of Christ.” GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 15
“There are those who need in their hearts the touch of the divine Spirit. Then the message for this time will be their burden. They will not search for human tests, for something new and strange. The Sabbath of the fourth commandment is the test for this time, and therefore all connected with this great memorial is to be kept before the people. GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 16
“I am pained beyond what any language can express. Irreverence is coming in apace. I have words to speak to the young men who have been teaching the truth. Preach the word. You may have inventive minds. You may be expert, as were the Jewish teachers, in getting up new theories; but Christ said of them, ‘In vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.’ They presented traditions, suppositions, and fables of all kinds to the people. The forms and ceremonies they enjoined made it simply impossible for the people to know whether they were keeping the word of God or following the imaginations of men.” GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 17
“It is not our service to pray that colored hair shall become black, or that gray hair, which God pronounces honorable, shall become black. Those who set their minds laboring in this direction are not following on to know the Lord. They are starting in a course which will lead to the greatest, most God-dishonoring fanaticism. Our work is to form new habits of thought. Through faith in Christ we can do this. Natural propensities are to be controlled. Selfish inclinations are to be denied. Again and again something hostile to grace and reform will start into life. Again and again we shall be called into the conflict to fight against hereditary tendencies to wrong. What shall ministers teach the people?—Certainly not fables. Certainly not their own foolish imaginings, which would put a yoke grievous to be borne upon the necks of poor souls. Such a yoke Christ has not formed.” GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 18
“If Satan can work to turn the whole current of the waters of life into the most polluted channels, it is the very work he would rejoice to see the whole Seventh-day Adventist people engaged in. He desires to use up in this way all the available means, so that there is nothing left to sustain foreign missions or to send the gospel to the world. But God wants his work to go in the very way he has ordained for it to go. He has not inaugurated a new plan or arrangement to save the world.” GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 19
“God says, ‘Begin in the highways; thoroughly work the highways, prepare a company who in unity with you will go forth to do the very work that Jesus did in seeking and saving the lost.’ This is the kind of work that I have ever seen should be done. We are not to strain every spiritual sinew and nerve to descend to the lowest depths, and make that work the all and in all, neglecting to bring to the Master others who need the truth, who are bearing responsibilities, and who will work with all their sanctified ability for the high places as well as for the low places.” GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 20
“Satan has a scheme to corrupt through the association, work called rescue work, the sight of the eyes, the hearing of the ears—the association and impressions made by Satanic agencies—that will be used to the very uttermost of Satan's power. Through his deceptive workings, the administration of the powers of Satanic agencies, many who have given themselves to the work of rescue will drown their own souls, and will under doubts and difficulties need a similar work done for them. They may go beyond remedy. The Lord does not want the work of the message of the third angel to be retarded. The most solemn message of mercy is to be given to a fallen world. Any kind of influence, any kind of sympathy, created by pen or voice to gather the facilities of means, as has been done, and invested in this class of work, that the foreign missionary work shall be in the situation it is in today, is not the work of God.” GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 21
I understand from the report, that the foreign missionary donations have fallen off the past year upward of $20,000. My soul is burdened that we as a denomination of people, and as individuals, stand by the work of God today as it has been outlined in the past messages; and that we live so close to him, and so carefully study his word and the experiences of the past, that when these new things come in, these strange things, something devised by some inventive mind, to create sensation or something of that kind, we will be so firmly rooted in the faith that we will not be moved from our moorings, but go straight forward; and instead of letting the enemy come in and getting the church all absorbed in that, may our whole energies be given to the third angel's message,—the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Let us lift up the message as it was preached in the early days, and it will be a cleaver to separate the honest from the people of the world, and fit them for translation. We are living in perilous times. If there ever was a time when there should be a voice sounding somewhere, that the poor, deluded sheep that have no shepherd might hear the true voice, that time is now. Brethren, may God help us to preach the message in its purity, that the sound may go to earth's remotest bounds, and souls be gathered out, such as shall finally be saved with us in his eternal kingdom. GCB January 1, 1900, Art. A, par. 22