The Church in Need of Special Help

All the great events and world conditions heretofore listed, and others that space forbids mentioning, are last-day events and conditions. They are momentous and vital. They are related to the finishing of the gospel, and they are all to occur during “the time of the end.” This being true, the time of the end, the time in which we are living, is surely the most momentous and the most dreadful in all the history of mankind.AGP 235.3

It must not be forgotten that the church of Christ is vitally related to all these great events. She is deeply involved in the serious conditions that develop day by day. The present is, therefore, a time of peril, of perplexity, and of unparalleled need for the church. Grave responsibilities rest upon the people ofAGP 235.4

God in this hour. They are in sore need of special help from their great Head, the living Christ.AGP 236.1

This help has, moreover, been abundantly provided by the Lord, and in this abundant provision of help there is given a promise of the renewal of the operation of the prophetic gift.AGP 236.2

Note the clear, positive statements of the prophet Joel: “It shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.” Joel 2:28. That the “afterward” in this prophecy refers to the last days is made clear in Peter’s use of this scripture in Acts 2:17: “It shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh.”AGP 236.3