Ellen White visited Fresno Central Seventh-day Adventist church for the first time in 1888. She spoke about how church members would make a strong church if they met their responsibilities for building up the church and always moving forward. What would she say today if she spoke to our churches? Do we really comprehend how close we are to the end of time, as signs in the world and church testify, or have we become too comfortable and indolent here and are not putting our all into finishing the work?
Pastor Bohr spends much of this presentation urging the church to make sure they have received the "former rain" of the Holy Spirit so that we will have spiritual life in us to finish the gospel mission God entrusted us with. We need to look at end time events in the context of preparing ourselves for them. "The latter rain, ripening earth's harvest, represents the spiritual grace that prepares the church for the coming of the Son of man. But unless the former rain has fallen, there will be no life; the green blade will not spring up. Unless the early showers have done their work, the latter rain can bring no seed to perfection. There is to be 'first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.' There must be a constant development of Christian virtue, a constant advancement in Christian experience. This we should seek with intensity of desire....
Many have in a great measure failed to receive the former rain. They have not obtained all the benefits that God has thus provided for them. They expect that the lack will be supplied by the latter rain. When the richest abundance of grace shall be bestowed, they intend to open their hearts to receive it. They are making a terrible mistake....The heart must be emptied of every defilement and cleansed for the indwelling of the Spirit. It was by the confession and forsaking of sin, by earnest prayer and consecration of themselves to God, that the early disciples prepared for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. The same work, only in greater degree, must be done now" (TM 506-507).
