Publishing The Message-1

March 22  Publishing the Message-1

 


You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will bear witness for me in Jerusalem, and throughout all Judea and Samaria, and even in the farthest corners of the earth. Acts 1:8, REB.

Small beginnings were the way of the early Christian church. So would they be for Sabbatarian Adventism. One can hardly imagine a more humble start for what would become a worldwide publishing endeavor.

In response to his wife's publishing vision, the financially prostrate and homelss James White stepped out in faith to write and print the "little paper." Looking that little sheet, and wrote every word of it, our entire library comprising a three-shilling pocket Bible, Cruden's Condensed Councordance, and Walker's old dictionary, minus one of its covers. Destitute of means, our hope of success was in God."

Not having much choice, White sought out a non-Adventist printer who produced the eight-page pamphlet for a total stranger and was willing to wait for his pay until contributors filtered back from the hoped-for readers. James White found such a printer in Charles Pelton of Middletown, Connecticut.

The first 1,000 copies of the Present Truth came off the press in July 1849. "When he brought the first number from the printing office," Ellen White recalled, "we all bowed around it, asking the Lord, with humble hearts and many tears, to let his blessing rest upon the feeble efforts of his servant. He [James] then directed the paper to all he thought would read it, and carried it to the post office [eight miles distant] in a carpetbag. . .Very soon letters came bringing means to publish the paper, and the good news of many souls embracing the truth"(1888 LS 260).

The content of the Present Truth was what the Sabbatarians saw as God's special message for their time-the Sabbath, the three angels' messages, and related topics. The "little paper" played an important part in the gathering time of the late 1840s.

God, from a human perspective, often works in strange ways. We are impressed with begness and power in any endeavor. But the Lord values humility and dedication. Stepping out in humble faith isn't just something for James White. He can use you and me also if we sill give Him the little that we have in humble dedication.

You must be good before you can do good. You cannot exert an influence that will transform others until your own heart has been humbled and refined and made tender by the grace of Christ. When this change has been wrought in you, it will be as natural for you to live to bless others as it is for the rosebush to yield its fragrant bloom or the vine its purple clusters(TFMB, 128).