Our quotation from Hebrews leads us back to the prophet Haggai, whose words in chapter 2, verse 6, are what the apostle doubtless refers to. This introduces us to that field of prophecies relating to the captivity and the return, so typical of the apostasy and of the final restoration of the true church in these last days. It should not be a thing incredible that the great spiritual events of these epoch-making times should be in accordance with prophetic utterance, nor that the Holy Spirit should lead Brother Warner, as he testifies to having been led, into these things as prophetic truth. Indeed the reader, if he be a seeker after truth, should not be surprized to find the Holy Spirit confirming to his own mind that these things have a prophetic illumination. Brother Warner's reference to these prophecies, and his comments, are here given. Of Heb. 12:25-29 he thus speaks:
On the 30th of August, 1879, the Holy Spirit in a special manner gave me the foregoing scripture. I had never clearly comprehended its meaning and I felt impressed that the Lord was about to lead me into a new vein of truth. I shut myself up with God and the Bible, when "the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost," took most of the things that are contained in what follows and showed them to me. Being fully assured that my mind had been led into the pure light of truth, we published it from the pulpit, much to the edification of the holy brethren. We feel confident that the following chain of Scriptures, correlative with our text, will conduct every meek and candid reader into the same light it has your humble servant. We shall find the foregoing words of the inspired apostle a key to the prophetic description of the great work of holiness....
Let us examine the same declaration elsewhere in the Holy Book. Haggai 2:5-7: "According to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not. For thus saith the Lord of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts." The rebuilding of the temple is the subject under consideration. This ancient abode of the great Shekinah was such a marked figure of the church of God that it is seldom spoken of by the holy seers but what the spirit of prophecy flashes forth in interspersed references to the "spiritual house." Says the prophet, "The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts" (v. 9). Is it not in the midst of his church where God speaks peace to thousands who seek his face? Let us also thank God for the gracious intimation that the glory of the restored, latter-day church shall exceed that which preceded the dark-age captivity.
It is quite evident that the words in verses 5-7 were in the mind of the apostle when he wrote the words of our text. And we find here additional evidence that the "once more shaking" relates to the triumphs of the gospel, because it is associated with the coming of Christ, not as Judge, but the "Desire [or Savior] of all nations."...
God never designed that we should
"Roam through weary years
Of inbred sin and doubts and fears,
A bleak and toilsome wilderness."
If you have not passed through the Jordan, the death-convulsions of the "old man" of sin, to the Canaan rest, it is because you have either ignorantly or wilfully "refused him that speaketh," and "entered not in because of unbelief."...
"I will fill this house with glory." Here is the glory that Christ gives: "The Spirit of glory and of God," that fills and rests upon the church when inbred sin and all weights are shaken out. What is here associated with the "once more" shaking corresponds with entire sanctification.