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H.M.S Richards Library
What the Second Coming of Christ Means to Me
One of the last HMS Richards sermons we have in our files, "What the Second Coming of Christ Means to Me" is part of a series he did late in 1978 on basic Christian beliefs. In his early years as a preacher, Richards could assume that his audience knew a great deal about the Bible. As the years rolled by, this was no longer so true, and while he was still the Voice of Prophecy, HMS Richards preached less about Daniel and Revelation, and more about Jesus, God, sin, repentance, conversion, and the Christian life. Here, he leaves a decided testimony about the event he had been awaiting all his life..
"What does the second coming of Christ mean to me? Everything. Everything.
'Even so, come , Lord Jesus.'
Amen."
Read it for yourself, and see what it meant to him, and may mean to you.
Texas Letter Voice of Prophecy
Story of the Advent Message Great Disappointment of October 22, 1844
"Adventists have always been exercised by the memory of the Great Disappointment of October 22, 1844, and HMS Richards was no exception.
His library lets us follow along in his studies, as we see what he considered important enough to annotate and mark up, just as many students still do today. He had already begun building his library -- you can see from the title page that this book, published in 1926, was the 780th addition to his library. An inscription inside the front cover indicates that he bought it the same year, seven years after his graduation from Washington Missionary College. The selection from pages 54 and 55 shows Richards' study of the early days of the Adventist church, and their discovery of the seventh-day Sabbath. Richards would continue reading -- his library has more than 30 books just on the history of Adventism. Why not come down and see for yourself what this pioneer of radio evangelism thought was worth remarking and remembering about the early days of our church?
Voice of Prophecy Scripts
Echoes of Liberty
the book. In faint pencil below the title is "H. R. Eastman", most likely someone from the family of Richard's wife, Mabel Annabelle Eastman. So this book had at least three owners before arriving at its present home. F. E. Belden was a music publisher as well as a hymn-writer, and this particular songbook was dedicated to the Women's Relief Corps, the female auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic, the main organization of Union veterans in the American Civil War. It received favorable mention in the Literary Century in 1892. The third picture is the last page of the book, where Belden had included an advertisement for a book of religious songs and lessons for children, published by the Review and Herald. See what you can tell about 19th-century bookselling and book distribution from that!
From H.M.S. Richards' Father
Here is a little piece of history from H.M.S. Richards' father.
Halbert Marshall Jenkin Richards was a 19th-century Adventist preacher who collected many items from early Adventist history. Many of his books and papers passed to his son. Here is an exciting one: a letter from Alonzo T. Jones, originally sent in 1899, about the Adventist health message. H.M.J. Richards had copied it out by hand in 1903, and at some point it passed into H.M.S. Richards' file on "Health"; evidently it was kept for its practical advice, not merely as a memento.
Note the care taken for authentication -- H.M.J. Richards and D. Rush, the man to whom the letter had been sent, both signed the assertion that it was a true copy of Jones' original letter.
Now you, too, can see this letter, 116 years old, and share the advice that Richards' father copied out, and Richards kept.
"Behold Thy Mother"
HMS Richards often told stories from his own life in his sermons. Here, for Mother's Day, he tells us how his own mother raised him and inspired him.
"Prophecies of Resurrection"
"This Easter sermon was preached 70 years ago, in the closing days of World War II. One can hear H.M.S. Richards speaking across the years to us, the King's Heralds singing songs chosen to work with the sermon to carry its message, and H.M.S. Richard's father, H.M.J. Richards, offering the prayer for the program.
H.M.S. Richards, pioneer religious broadcaster, was the founder and long-time speaker of the Voice of Prophecy radio ministry. His ministry inspired broadcasts in dozens of languages on more than 1,000 stations worldwide, as well as Bible courses in some 80 languages offered by more than 125 correspondence schools.
Upon graduation from college in 1919, H.M.S. Richards served as an evangelist in various places in the United States and Canada. In the 1920s in California he began experimenting with radio announcements for his meetings. He began regular radio broadcasts on October 19, 1929 on KNX (AM) in Los Angeles. Later, Richards presented daily live broadcasts of The Tabernacle of the Air over KGER in Long Beach, and live weekly remote broadcasts from his tabernacle to KMPC (AM) in Beverly Hills. In January 1937 his footprint expanded over a network of several stations of the Don Lee Broadcasting System, and the name of the broadcast was changed to the Voice of Prophecy. His first coast-to-coast broadcast over 89 stations of the Mutual Broadcasting System was on Sunday, January 4, 1942.HMS Richards Library Hours
This is a closed collection. Please make an appointment with Michelle Rojas, the Special Collections Librarian.
Contact Us
Michelle Rojas, Special Collections Librarian
mrojas@lasierra.edu
(951) 785-2518
Library Location
La Sierra University Library
Room 121