OBJECTION 7. — NEW CONVERTS

In a vision given June 27, 1850, Experience and Views, page 55, we read as follows concerning new converts to the truth: “But now time is almost finished, and what we have been years learning, they will have to learn in a few months.” “Then,” says the objector, “the Lord should have come in a few months from that time.” Not at all. The view, as is evident from the testimony commencing on the middle of the preceding page, is showing what a preparation the people of God must have, to endure the suffering they would have to meet for Christ’s sake, and escape the seven last plagues. The tenor of the vision is shown by such expressions as these: “Will ye shun the seven last plagues? If so, ye must die that ye may live. Get ready, get ready. Ye must have a greater preparation than ye now have. Ye must be partakers of Christ’s sufferings here, if ye would be partakers with him of his glory hereafter.”VEGW 45.1

“I saw that some of us have had time to get the truth, and to advance step by step, and every step we have taken has given us strength to take the next.” Then follows the sentence first quoted: “But now time is almost finished, and what we have been years learning, they will have to learn in a few months.”VEGW 46.1

Now the strength we gain by our experience as we journey on, is just proportioned to the draft that will be made upon it by the conflicts and trials before us.VEGW 46.2

That is, we need at any time all the strength that we have up to that time gained. And at no time is it true of any of us, that we have acquired more strength than we need to be able to stand. As time elapses, we meet heavier conflicts, and closed tests are brought to bear upon us. We can now easily see how it must be with new converts in any of the advanced stages of our progress. What those of longer standing have been learning by years of experience, and so have just acquired strength for future progress, new converts, in order to come up to the same degree of capability of endurance, as it is necessary that they should do, in order to stand, must learn in a very short space of time. And this will be more and more emphatically the case, as we draw nearer and nearer to the end.VEGW 46.3

Again, we find in the Bible declaration after declaration, put in the present tense, but yet having no reference to the time in which they were written, but only to some future time, when they would be specially applicable. See for instance the following: “The end of all things is at hand.” “Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.” “The Judge standeth before the door.” “We shall not all sleep.” “We which are alive and remain;” etc. 1 Peter 4:5, 7; James 5:9; 1 Corinthians 15:51; 1 Thessalonians 4:15; declarations which applied, not to the generation then living, but to people eighteen hundred years from that time. But no believer in the Bible ever thinks of objecting to it, on account of this testimony. Why? Because they understand the principle that a person in vision, or writing under the influence of the Spirit of God, is frequently carried forward into the future, and speaks from that stand-point as though the time was then present. Just apply the same principle to the case before us, and the objection vanishes at once, and all is harmonious and plain.VEGW 46.4