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What Is Coming Next?

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 14, 1865

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 25, No. 12.

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What Is Coming Next?

By R. F. Cottrell

The Lord is leading his people or he is not. He has set his hand to the work of uniting and purifying them and thus preparing them for the coming of Jesus, or he has not. If the Lord is not doing a special work for his people, S. D. Adventists are a mistaken and deluded people; for it is their faith that God is fulfilling a prophetic message in them and through them, which has brought them together, and which distinguishes them from all others. If we deny the faith that God is specially leading this people, we must think them a deluded people, and not the people of the Lord. Convince me that the Lord is not leading us, and I will leave this people and look elsewhere for the people of the Lord; for I want to belong to them, and a people built upon a false foundation are not his people. But if the Lord is leading us we shallbe led aright. Let all decide the question, then,
whether the Lord has begun to fulfill the last of the three angels' messages. If he has not, then this is a false and deluded people, and those who would serve God should not go with us, nor countenance our work in the least. But if you believe that this is God's people, you believe the Lord is leading us, and you have no cause to fear that we shall be led wrong. To be consistent, all must take sides for or against our work. It must be received as the work of God, or be rejected as the work of men or devils.
But some profess to go with us who go hesitatingly, and in every advance in reform seem to go grudgingly; like the stubborn mule they brace themselves back, and have to be pulled along. They seem to fear to take an advance step, not so much because the step proposed is wrong, but for fear that there is something dreadful ahead. At every step they inquire, What are we coming to next? Those who have confidence in the leading and teaching of the Lord will reply, The Lord has led us aright so far, and we are sure that the next step will be something good—the very thing that we need.
To bring us as a people to a healthy state of soul and body, and to make us temples of the Holy Spirit, our attention was called to the injurious, idolatrous and filthy habit of using tobacco. Some thought their liberty was endangered, and though they could bring no argument for tobacco, yet they could seem to anticipate that tea and coffee would be alike rejected, and hence the inquiry came up, What next? And since the Lord is teaching us concerning injurious articles of diet, we may expect that some will anxiously anticipate starvation. What is coming next? Something good, I am sure, I am not for going back into Egypt for fear the Lord will starve us to death.
The Lord has great spiritual blessings in store for us, which will be given when we are in readiness to receive them into sanctified vessels, and to use them to his glory. He has honored us in the past in hearing our prayers for the sick &c., as much as he could and not dishonor himself. He honors those who honor him. When we are prepared to honor him in all things, to shine as lights in the world, he will bless us more abundantly. When we learn to deny ourselves of hurtful things, and live truly temperate; when we do all we can to secure a healthy mind in a healthy body; when we purify the temple and use all our powers to the glory of God, the Spirit will come in and take possession. The Lord does not propose to bless our souls and not care for our bodies. A human soul in his account is a person possessing both mind and body; and he has said, "Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit;" and also, "If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."
The Lord is leading us. He will do nothing to injure us, but all to bless us. Let us cheerfully labor with him for our own good. All is essential and nothing non-essential, of all the light which he is giving us. Let us thankfully receive all the light and walk in it, and we shall soon be prepared to receive his blessing—the out-pouring of his Spirit. Let us willingly move onward in reform, and not doubtingly and grudgingly inquire at every step, What next?
R. F. COTTRELL.