General Conference Bulletin, vol. 4

THE FIELD

Talk of Elder A. G. Daniells, II:30, a. m. April 3.

The subject we have to consider this morning is our field and its needs. In a word, our field is the world. Its needs are the consecrated lives, loving service, and property of the people of God. But we wish to study some Scripture expressions regarding this matter. GCB April 4, 1901, page 47.1

In the fourth chapter of the gospel by John, and the thirty-fifth verse, we have the following statement: “Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the field.” This is the word of Christ. This is what we ought to do during this meeting as we never have before. GCB April 4, 1901, page 47.2

Lift up your eyes, and look on the field. What is the field?—In another scripture Jesus says, “The field is the world.” Then if we lift up our eyes and look on the field, we shall look on the great, wide world. That is the field. GCB April 4, 1901, page 47.3

Why are we to look on the field?—That we may see its condition and its needs, and that we may, under God, supply those needs. As we look on the field, what do we see?—We see the world lying in darkness, in the hands of the wicked one. Isaiah says: “For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people.” The world is in darkness, and we must go to the world, bearing the light of heaven: and so the first verse says: “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” The people to whom light has come are to arise and shine in the darkness. Where is the darkness?—“Behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people.” GCB April 4, 1901, page 47.4

I understand it has been God’s purpose, from the time the gospel was made known, that his people should be lightbearers to the world and to those who are in darkness. We all understand this theoretically, but we must realize as never before the greatness of our field and the fact that we must go into that great, wide field with speed and with power. GCB April 4, 1901, page 47.5

The message of the third angel is to be given to the entire world. We are familiar with the scripture, but I will read it. Revelation 14:6: “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth.” We have a map here [pointing to a large missionary map of the world] to which we may want to refer a number of times during this Conference. Let us look at it a moment, keeping in mind the thought, “I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth.” The entire globe is included—not simply a small portion on the American continent known as the United States, and a portion in the South; but the whole world—“every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.” No class of people has a monopoly of the message. It is confined to no country, to no nation or people, but it is for the whole world alike. GCB April 4, 1901, page 47.6

The apostle Paul says, in Romans 1:14: “I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.” That takes in all peoples. In another scripture we are told that “God is no respecter of persons;” and again we are told that he “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.” How can our Father be any respecter of persons? Every man is his child, every single human being is his. No one has prior claims upon him, and his light and truth. GCB April 4, 1901, page 47.7

Here is a statement in 1 Peter 4:10: “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” We were shown last night that every man who forms a union with Christ receives the life of Christ, and becomes the minister of life to those who have not the life. The light of the gospel that has come to me has made me a debtor to my fellow men, and I am under bonds to God and to man to bear that light to men. GCB April 4, 1901, page 47.8

The light must shine. The only way that a man can keep what light he has, is to shed it abroad. It is diffusion that causes increase to the individual. The man who fails to diffuse, to scatter out what God gives him, will lose the thing itself. GCB April 4, 1901, page 47.9

Brethren, we all assent to this fact, but do not sense it as God wants us to. I know that there are many who are persuading themselves that they appreciate this truth, that they are rejoicing in it, and they tell how much it has done for them, and how happy they are in it; and yet they are making no proper effort whatever to place it before people who are in darkness. I do not see how any one can really know the truth, and yet be indifferent to the crying needs of men and women who have it not. GCB April 4, 1901, page 47.10

Are we indifferent? Here is a statement from the Spirit of prophecy: “Ye churches of the living God, study this promise.” And this is the promise: “Thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward.” “Ye servants of God, study this promise, and consider how your lack of faith, of spirituality, of divine power, is hindering the coming of the kingdom of God. Were every one of you living missionaries, the gospel would be speedily proclaimed in all countries, to all peoples, nations, and tongues. This is the work that must be done before Christ shall come in power and great glory.” GCB April 4, 1901, page 47.11

I earnestly pray that God will make us to understand this while we are here. The first statement is that our lack of faith, of spirituality and divine power, is hindering the coming of the kingdom of God. Let us get the faith of Jesus. Let us get the spirituality of Christ. Let us get the power of the divine Spirit, and then we shall no longer hinder the coming of the kingdom of Jesus. “Were every one of you living missionaries.”—oh that God may choose his servants here, and baptize them with the Holy Ghost for service, and send them forth into the great dark world to lighten it with the glory of God! GCB April 4, 1901, page 47.12

We know that we are living in the last great conflict. We know that the signs of the times everywhere, in the heavens and the earth, and among all the nations of the earth, tell us that we are in the last days. We are right in the end, and we have been there for many years; but God declares that the end is being delayed by his own people, to whom he has given the light and the truth; and that now the only way to hasten that end and bring it speedily, is for his people to do their duty,—to arise in the name of God, become what they ought to become, and then go forth in the world to give the message with power, to arouse a sleeping world, and gather out God’s people and bring them to the Lord. GCB April 4, 1901, page 47.13

Here is another statement: “If God’s people had the love of Christ in the heart: if every church member were thoroughly imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice; if all manifested a thorough earnestness, there would be no lack of funds for home and foreign missions: our resources would be multiplied; a thousand doors of usefulness would be opened, and we would be invited to enter. Had the purpose of God been carried out by his people in giving the message of mercy to the world, Christ would have come to the earth, and the saints would, ere this, have received their welcome into the city of God.” GCB April 4, 1901, page 47.14

Let us take this message to our hearts to-day, turn square about in the Conference, and place ourselves on God’s ground. Unless we see something definite, do you know that it will take a millennium to give this message to the world? We shall never, at the rate of progress we are making, get this message before the world in our day. We must have a definite experience, and I believe we shall. I believe that there will come liberty and freedom and power to God’s people, and we shall see this truth go by ways and means and operations that we have never seen in our lives. And it is our privilege to look for this, to pray for it, to live for it,—and when we live for it, we shall see it. Here is another statement:— GCB April 4, 1901, page 48.1

“We must devise and plan wisely, that the people may have an opportunity to hear for themselves the last message of mercy to the world. The people should be warned to make ready for the great day of God, which is right upon them. We have no time to lose. We must do out utmost to reach men where they are. The world is now reaching the boundary line in impenitence and disregard for the laws of the government of God.” GCB April 4, 1901, page 48.2

In every city of our world the warning must be proclaimed. We know that, and yet, dear friends, just look over the field. Look over the great world that we are to carry the message to. Every nation, kindred, tongue, and people must be warned, and in every city of our world the warning must be proclaimed. GCB April 4, 1901, page 48.3

It seems to me that these things should stir our souls to action. Let us look at our field for a few moments. Here is the part which we are most familiar,—the United States. Here are about seventy or eighty millions of people. That constitutes only about one twentieth of all the people of the world. Outside of all the people of the world. Outside of this country are nineteen twentieths of humanity. But we know that up to the present time our labors have been chiefly confined to this portion of the globe, and the great bulk of means has been expended in this part of the world. The great facilities that we have established are almost wholly in this part of the world. So that among the seventy-five thousand believers in the third angel’s message, about sixty thousand are here in the United States. And of the means that is raised throughout the field for the support of the ministry and the prosecution of the work, at least nine tenths of it is raised in this field, and expended, I presume, in this country. But the time has come for us to look long and steadily at lands beyond this country, at the regions that are afar off. GCB April 4, 1901, page 48.4

I know it is very difficult for us to realize the situation. There are in the world to-day, 1,000,000,000 heathen. Of the 1,400,000,000 people who are living, at least two thirds are heathen. They do not know about God; they have not the light of the Bible; they do not know about a future life as it is revealed here in the word; and yet our message is to these people. We are to go to them. Their number is so vast that we are told that even the death-rate among the heathen is one every second; that is to say, every minute that we sit here in this Conference sixty heathen die without hope in God. That is at the rate of 100,000 every twenty-four hours. It is simply appalling when we stop to look at it. GCB April 4, 1901, page 48.5

God has given us a message that will reach the heathen as well as people in what are called Christian lands. I have great hopes regarding the triumph of the gospel in the hearts of the heathen. Man is man; sin is sin; and the gospel is the gospel; and it does not matter whether we go to a white man or a black man, whether we go to an educated man or an illiterate man, whether we go to men in so-called Christian lands or in heathen lands, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every man alike. And when we have the gospel, and when the gospel has us, we can go to the darkest nations with the fullest assurance that we have something that will triumph with them. That will do its work. I do not mean to say that every heathen will be converted. You understand that; but the gospel will reach the heathen; and who is a heathen but a man who is separated from God, no matter where he is? GCB April 4, 1901, page 48.6

The Lord has given us a message with which to reach the world. As we pass from our country, that we are so well acquainted with, we immediately go into lands of enormous populations. Crossing over to England, what do we find? A country, small in territorial area but a country of an immense population—40,000,000 people,—half as many, at least, as there are here in the United States. Crossing the channel from England, we come to France, a country with another 40,000,000. In those two countries close together, there are as many people as there are here in the United States. GCB April 4, 1901, page 48.7

Then if you pass on from France into Spain, you will find 17,000,000 people; in Portugal, 7,000,000; in Italy, over 30,000,000; in Austria-Hungary, over 30,000,000; in Germany, 50,000,000. I think; then up in Scandinavia, 10,000,000; and across into Russia, 150,000,000. And so we might go into China, and Africa, and you see what enormous populations there are in those various countries. GCB April 4, 1901, page 48.8

Brethren, what are we doing to bear the message to those great masses of people. If you look at the believers, you will see that the great majority are centered here in the United States. If God’s purpose had been understood and carried out, hundreds and hundreds would have gone from this country to the other portions of the world long before this. I do not believe it is right for these thousands of believers to stick together in this country. I believe that God calls us forth into other lands and to other people. GCB April 4, 1901, page 48.9

Then again, not only the majority of believers are here, but the great majority of laborers are here, and their efforts are confined to the people of this country. I believe that many more laborers should have gone forth, and ought now to be called forth to these people in darkness, to give them the message. Brethren, there is a mighty call to this people in this country for men to arise and go to the masses of the people, and preach the gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. And it seems to me that this Conference will miss a great deal unless it results in arousing these delegates, as they have never been aroused, in behalf of the people in the regions afar off, and I sincerely pray that every step that is taken here will lead to this result. GCB April 4, 1901, page 48.10

I have a message here that was written thirteen years ago. It was copied from Sister White’s diary only last year, but it was written in 1887. The message says:— GCB April 4, 1901, page 48.11

“We have just come from Europe, where we have been laboring for two years. We saw there on every side fields which needed to be entered and worked. The people were softened and subdued by the Spirit of God.” GCB April 4, 1901, page 48.12

When was this written?—One year before 1888; one year before that glorious message was brought out and developed in Minneapolis. And what is it? GCB April 4, 1901, page 48.13

“The people were softened and subdued by the Spirit of God, and were longing for spiritual food.” GCB April 4, 1901, page 48.14

Brethren, what should this people have done right there?—That message should have been received in all its fullness, and God’s servants should have gone forth to the people of the world, whose hearts his Spirit had subdued and softened, and who were longing for the truth of God. GCB April 4, 1901, page 49.1

“They called for books and papers and for the living preacher. All was done for them that could be done. We knew that nothing more could be done unless hearts, were awakened to see the necessity of the work and the need of means to be used in sending those calling for help not only the books, but the living preacher.” That was the step that should have been taken there. GCB April 4, 1901, page 49.2

Well, this is a wonderful message to us. I can not read it all now, but we may have time to read it before the Conference closes. But here is a statement: “The work is to be made a living, breathing, vital power all over the world.” That was the message to us thirteen years ago, and that is the message of God, greatly emphasized, to us to-day. “This work is to be made a living, breathing, vital power all over the world.” Now we have been shown here that the only way the message can be a living, breathing, vital power among men is for it to be in the heart of the believer. And then he is to go forth through the world, and the message will be that all over the world. GCB April 4, 1901, page 49.3

Much is said in these communications regarding our duty toward England. Perhaps I ought to read another statement. “There is a great work to be done in England. The light radiating from London should beam forth in clear, distinct rays to regions beyond. God has wrought in England, but the English-speaking world has been terribly neglected. You that have the cause of God at heart, bear in mind the great work to be done in London and all through England.” GCB April 4, 1901, page 49.4

“It is essential that men be raised up to open the living oracles of God to all nations, tongues, and people. Let the brethren in America consider that the Lord expects them to deny self, take up the cross, and follow Jesus.” GCB April 4, 1901, page 49.5

“Thousands of places are to be worked. Let there be no parleying with flesh and blood.” O that God will teach us the meaning of that statement, “Let there be no parleying with flesh and blood.” I love that beautiful statement of the great apostle, where he says that when the truth of the gospel was revealed to him, immediately he conferred not with flesh and blood. O brethren! we want to cease to confer with flesh and blood in this thing. We want to know what God says to us about this world, and about giving this message to the world. We want to go to God and get light for ourselves regarding where our field is, and what our work is. And I will tell you, brethren, when we cease this conferring with flesh and blood, we shall get definite light, regarding our place and our work, and then we can go to that place and work effectually. And if we are called to a foreign land, we can go there for life; and when we get there, we can meet the difficulties triumphantly, and we can labor on until God comes, or until he calls us somewhere else. I do not believe in these short trips to foreign lands. GCB April 4, 1901, page 49.6

If it will not be out of place, I would like to state here a bit of personal experience. In 1886 the General Conference Committee wrote to me, stating that they wished me to go to New Zealand, and asked what I thought about it. It was a new suggestion: I did not understand it; I did not have any definite light; but to be a good, obedient servant, I said to the brethren: “I do not know whether I ought to go or not, but if you think I ought to go, I will go; but I will ask you to take the responsibility of the trip.” I had been taught by precedent, and believed the talk I had heard in Conference matters, that that was the way to do; but after my letter had gone. I was aroused, and I was told that that was not the position at all for me to take. I was made to realize that I was the servant of the living God, that he had called me to preach the gospel. The field was his, and he was the Lord, and he was to tell me where I ought to go. The brethren might make a suggestion, but God must tell me and make me understand it; and I will tell you, brethren, I went off up into a barn, and I got down there in the hay, and I told the Lord all about it. I told him I was his servant; he was the Lord, and he must tell me whether I ought to go to New Zealand or not. And I staid there until God did tell me, and I got just as clear evidence as I wanted that the Lord wanted me to go to New Zealand. GCB April 4, 1901, page 49.7

I came down from the haymow, went to my desk, and wrote another letter to the General Conference president. I said: “I want to take back what I have written: I want to tell you that I know where God wants me to labor. He has called me to New Zealand, and I am now ready to go there, and to go for life, and take the responsibility that will be connected with the trip.” I wrote it, and God let the peace and light come into my heart. Brethren, I took my things, what little I wanted to take, a couple of trunks,—I cut the tethering line, and I said, as far as I understood it, an everlasting farewell to everybody in the United States. I went to New Zealand for life. I never expected to set foot in this country again. I thought the Lord would come before this, and that when I met my relatives and my brethren, I would meet them either on the way to heaven or around the marriage table of the Lamb. That is the reckoning I made in that thing. GCB April 4, 1901, page 49.8

When I got there, I found difficulties, and it was not long till great darkness came over the situation. But, brethren, in all the darkness and difficulties of fourteen years, I have never had a single doubt as to my field of labor. I have known that I stood where God placed me; and when darkness came, I knew there was light beyond. That knowledge held and sustained me, and brought me into light and victory. GCB April 4, 1901, page 49.9

I believe that God wants us to get our bearings. He wants us to know where we stand. He wants us to stop conferring with flesh and blood in this matter. God is our Lord; the field is the world; all souls are his, and we are debtor to all; and we are here at this Conference to hear the voice of God speaking to us regarding the awful claims of the world, and telling us where we are to labor, and to whom we are to administer the loving ministry of our lives. O, I pray that God will select his men here, and baptize them for service. Are we going to dally with these things forever? Are we going to let this Conference pass, and receive no clearer impressions than we have had regarding our duty to the world, and then go back to our homes to live the same humdrum life, and wither and narrow down?—God forbid. I tell you, brethren, there is a different experience for us. I know this is a good time for every minister of Jesus Christ to feel for the foundations, and to find them. GCB April 4, 1901, page 49.10

If God calls you back to Iowa, Nebraska, or California, go where he calls you; but I believe the time has come for the ministers of this denomination to leave these fields that have had so much labor, and preach the gospel in foreign lands. These States have had a great deal of help. Take the little State I was born in, and left to go abroad—Iowa. It is a little place, and there are but few people there,—only two million,—and yet there are in that State between three and four thousand believers in this message. The seed has been sown in that State for forty years. There has been enough preparatory work done now, so that the people of God may rise up and give the message with a power that would close up the work in that place in a very short time. If every minister of Iowa were a man whom God could use in the regions afar off, and should be called there, there are enough people in Iowa to rise up and close the work in six months in that State, provided God is with them. What are we going to do? Are we going back to Iowa to go around in the old treadmill, and spend $30,000 a year of tithes tramping the ground over and over, just as we have been doing?—God forbid! GCB April 4, 1901, page 49.11

It is a serious problem that is before the laborers of this country. I have been in some of our colleges, and as I have seen the condition, and thought of the situation before us, I have in the middle of the night tossed on my bed until the perspiration has issued from the pores of my body. States full of laborers, as many as the tithes will support; scores and hundreds of young men and women being educated, who should enter some field; but when the term closes, where can they go? what can they do? who wants them? who will support them? They do not know which way to look, or to turn. There is nothing focused in the situation with them. Our young people are turning away to the world, they are turning away from the ministry of Jesus Christ into all sort of work. Our ministry to-day is not getting the bright, keen, vigorous, earnest young men and women in its ranks that it ought to be getting. GCB April 4, 1901, page 50.1

The situation is a serious one. What shall we do? I believe the time has come when God would take the ministers of these States, give them a knowledge of the gospel, and clothe them with the power of the Spirit of God, so that they could go into these towns where the truth has been preached, and preach it in a way and with a power that would cause the seed to spring into life, and bring the people who have been halting to an immediate decision. If that were done over the United States, during the coming year we should see a mighty work done through this country. GCB April 4, 1901, page 50.2

It is not only for foreign fields that we need earnestly to pray, and receive a qualification here at this meeting. It is for home fields as well. It seems to me we need to have more strong men among the masses of the people, preaching the gospel to them. It is not to fill offices, or to run machinery, that God calls for men to-day; it is not for our men to get hold of cranks and turn them. There are too many of our laborers coming in from the great, wide field, getting attached to machinery, turning cranks, and spending their energies in institutions. God calls upon us to get away from this, to get out among the masses, to come in personal touch with the dying world, look into their eyes, put our hands into their hands, and communicate to them the life of Jesus Christ. GCB April 4, 1901, page 50.3

God calls for us to do this work. I feel that if the steps which have begun to be taken here shall sweep out the unnecessary wheels, take off the unnecessary cranks in the machinery, and simplify the whole thing, so that there will not be friction, and so the energies of the great bulk of our laborers are not centered on the running of this machinery—if this shall be the result of the work done during this Conference, setting us free and saving us from confusion. O what a blessing will come to this cause and people! I earnestly pray for it. Let us not be afraid to let God put his hand in, and drag out the unnecessary wheels. He will not smash up things which do not need to be smashed. He will preserve everything that is necessary to do the work creditably to his name; but I believe, before God, that we have allowed form and unnecessary machinery and organization and institutional management to come in and rob the great field of men who ought to be out there giving the message. GCB April 4, 1901, page 50.4

I want to tell you, brethren, that out in some regions there are Conferences struggling with very little help, while in this country there are Conferences that are overburdened with men and employees. New South Wales is a fully organized Conference, with a school that had an attendance last year of 160. Do you know that in that fully organized Conference, with a million and a half of people, more than there are in California, there are but three or four Conference laborers to carry on the work? Those men must attend to all the affairs of the Conference, the churches and institutions as far as they have opportunity to do, and then they must enter new territory and bear the message to the people. Look at the picture, and then turn to one of our States, perhaps Iowa or California, with less territorial area, with no greater population, with thousands of believers, with thousands upon thousands of dollars of tithes, and with from seventy to one hundred laborers. Is there any equality in the distribution of these laborers in these fields?—None whatever, and I tell you before God we must change the situation, and destitute Conferences, that have millions of people, but few followers and no institutions, and with but five or six ministers to bear the message to the millions who have never heard that there is a message, must have our men and our money to aid their work for the people. GCB April 4, 1901, page 50.5

God is going to raise up a people among us who will see the condition of things, and who will not confer with flesh and blood, but will go to the ends of the earth and make the message known to the entire universe. God will do it, and I know it, and that gives me hope as I talk here this morning. If it were not for that faith, I do not know what I would do in the face of the situation, but I believe God has called us to action, and he says that his people shall be lightened in the day of his power. And the day of his power is here. GCB April 4, 1901, page 50.6

Our business in life is not to get ahead of other people, but to get ahead of ourselves. To break our own record, to outstrip our yesterdays by to-days, to bear our trials more beautifully than we ever dreamed we could, to whip the tempter inside and out as we never whipped him before, to give as we never have given, to do our work with more force and a finer finish than ever,—this is the true idea,—to get ahead of ourselves. To beat some one else in a game, or to be beaten, may mean much or little. To beat our own game means a great deal. Whether we win or not, we are playing better than we ever did before, and that’s the point, after all,—to play a better game of life.—Sunday School Times. GCB April 4, 1901, page 50.7

Make this world as true and as good as you can. And the best way for you to help on this end is to be yourself true and good. Live a real life, but cultivate the ideal, and remember that the highest ideal you dream out is far below the possible reality that God purposes for you.—Bishop Vincent. GCB April 4, 1901, page 50.8