Editorial Keynotes

Breaking the Spell of the World

L.E.F. is editor of the Ministry

From numerous sources and in varied forms, questions come phrased some­what like this: Why is there not more of burning fervor in our spiritual life and activity? Why not more of evi­dent sacrifice, more of obvious abandonment to "finish the work," more of flaming passion for lost souls? And these inquiries are directed not alone toward the atti­tude of the laity, but to the ministry as well.

We cannot, we dare not, turn these questions aside as irrelevant and impertinent. The truth is that we all need a spiritual awakening. We need to humble our hearts before God, con­fessing our sins, our lukewarmness, and the inroads that the world has made upon us and the church. Altogether too many are not only "in" the world, but form an integral part "of" it, with its interests, its conveniences, and its allurements. Such are molded by its spirit, blinded by its deceptive appearances, and com­promised by such relationships. The sharp line of demarcation has in all too many cases been blurred, and in some instances well-nigh obliterated. It is this that blunts the edge of spiritual eagerness, chills spiritual ardor, and checks the missionary passion.

We all need a fresh disillusionment as to this old world. We need a genuine homesickness for the better land that will make this sinful world distasteful to us. We need to have its tinsel stripped away, so we may see its innate ugliness and barrenness. When its present friendliness and toleration for us turn to hos­tility and persecution against us, then we shall be weaned away from the enticement of its offerings. But unfortunately it will then be too late for some.

The creature comforts of modern life have spoiled us until multitudes are "at ease in Zion." The seeming friendliness of the world today has blurred the great issues involved and impending. The absence of persecution has chilled the intensity of longing for a better land. As a consequence, many are not keenly anxious to leave this old world. They have grown more or less secretly—or openly—con­tent with it. Yet this period of quiet is but the lull before the storm. Let disaster or depression sweep away the pleasant things, let the populace turn against us, let persecu­tion rage, let our eyes be opened to the heinous­ness of camouflaged sin, and the hypnotic at­traction of this old world for us will end, and we will long with all our souls for the great transition day.

The present economic crisis was needed for the purification of the church and the clarifica­tion of the issues—lest we forget. When fond aspiration and expectation become frustrated hope and bitter disappointment, then the spell of deceptive satisfaction will be broken. As never before we are to set our affection on things above, not on the bewitching things of earth. We have no abiding city here; we seek one soon to come. This we must herald anew to the church, as well as to the world.

L. E. F.

We Must Warn as Well As Witness

The constraining impulse of this movement is twofold, It is found, first, in the posi­tive heralding of the full provisions of "the everlasting gospel" that we are "to preach," with stress upon its present-day or culminat­ing aspects, and involving the final issues of the judgment and sanctuary service; and, sec­ond, in the negative warning against apostasy permeating the nominal Christian churches, and primarily as regards the perversions and departures of the Roman Church, as well as her gigantic plans and ambitions for triumph, which schemes are now in process of final de­velopment. These, presented in right relation, constitute the divine authority for our exist­ence as a distinctive movement. And they likewise constitute the dynamic urge that impels us onward in our witness. Otherwise we have no justification as a separate religious entity.

A conflict of principle between the third angel's message and the Papacy is inescapable, if we are true to our God and faithful to our trust. The muffling of our warning message in recent years—and in cases, a virtual silence relative to the Papacy—is not an occasion for complacence, but for grave concern. We need to review again the time and circumstances of our rise as a people, the solemn purpose that inspired our pioneers, together with our present attitude and relationship to this whole question. We were called into being to wit­ness according to the terms of the three an­gels' messages. What they enunciate, we are to declare. What they stress, we are to em­phasize. Departure from this platform will not only rob us of our motivating power, but will neutralize our witness in this crucial hour when the great forces of apostasy are girding for the final conflict against truth and right­eousness.

We stand as the extreme opposite of the Papacy, in matters both of church polity and of doctrinal belief. To cite but a few out of the many typical points:

We accept the mandates of the Bible as su­preme in authority, and as sufficient for salva­tion without priestly interpretation; they place the tradition of their church above the Bible as its necessary interpreter.

We recognize salvation to be a gift from God through personal faith in Jesus Christ; they construe salvation to be the reward of merit granted because of the good works of the hu­man aspirant.

We believe in the sovereignty of every man's conscience, and contend for liberty to obey or not to obey God according to individual choice; they are committed to the principle of com­pelling all to accept the teachings of the Roman Church, with persecution for dissenters wher­ever the church is in control and it is deemed expedient.

We understand the law of God to be eter­nal and unchangeable in its provisions, and that the seventh-day Sabbath constitutes its divinely appointed seal of authority and per­petuity; they claim that their church was given the power and prerogative of changing it, and that the substitution of Sunday for the Sabbath accepted (with but two exceptions) by the professed Christian world, Protestant as well as Catholic, constitutes the consummating proof of her right and authority.

We regard ourselves as the appointed heralds and defenders of forgotten faith, fact, and truth, and as protestants against these anti-Christian perversions; they consider us the modern "Mordecai in the gate," standing un­compromisingly between them and recognized world leadership in religious things.

We look to deliverance at the near advent of our Lord, when all wrongs will be righted, when truth will be vindicated and error over­thrown to the dismay of its adherents, and when those who follow God in loyalty will be taken from this sinful world to be with their Lord forever; they are planning for the day when the whole world may be coerced into sub­mission to the Catholic Church, with persecu­tion and death to the dissenter. This, of course, is the extreme ultimate of our diver­gence.

Conflict, then, between these opposite and irreconcilable principles is consequently un­avoidable, if we, like the Reformers of the six­teenth century, are faithful to the expectations of: our God in such an hour and situation as thin And woe be unto us if, having accepted ministerial responsibility in the remnant church, we are unfaithful to our trust! The blood of lost souls will surely be upon our gar­ments.

One factor in the difficulty has been that in the past not a few earnest souls unfortunately gave major emphasis to the negative warning we are commissioned to give, to the neglect of the positive saving provisions of the gospel. The fundamental truths of our message were, by such, held too largely as a theory, as a body of correct intellectual beliefs, and were not pre­sented as, or in right relation to, the experi­mental provisions of salvation. Correct doctrinal beliefs, if but intellectually held, will no more save the soul than will the mere rejection of error. It is the Christ of truth who saves. When awakened to their fatal lack, it is but natural that some of these conscientious work­ers should have gone to the other extreme of virtually exclusive emphasis upon the positive side of salvation in Christ. As a result, some have neglected or subdued the negative or warning side of our commission. Thus the pendulum swings to the two extremes of the arc.

It is a matter of record that in years past there was a one-sided emphasis upon this nega­tive aspect, so much so that the rebuke came from the servant of the Lord: "As a people, we have preached the law until we are as dry as the hills of Gilboa that had neither dew nor rain. We must preach Christ in the law, and there will be sap and nourishment in the preaching that will be as food to the famishing flock of God."—Review and Herald, March 11, 1890. Now some have swung to the opposite extreme. Many have at least subdued, if not indeed silenced, their testimony against apos­tate Protestant and papal error. And the ab­sence of conflict with these dominant religious forces is not attributable to a change of heart upon the part of the Papacy;but to a weakened warning note in our own witness.

God's ideal and expectation for us as His spokesmen is the harmonious blending of the two. Simply to warn against error is largely profitless, if the soul is left barren and hope­less. Nevertheless, the fundamental digres­sions of Christendom must be exposed by and in the terms of our message.

Experimental salvation is a personal requi­site for every herald of the third angel's mes­sage. This basic fact cannot be overempha­sized. Each worker should be an expert in leading others to the foot of the cross, and from thence to the triumphant life in Christ. To be such should be our supreme ambition. But we must not fail to warn every man, and to expose the flagrant errors that constitute the central issue in the closing conflict.

Just how these great issues should be pre­sented, is an individual problem that must be solved by each man. While the warnings do not save, they awaken; then the positive gospel saves. Some think that unless there is strong public denunciation of apostasy, there is failure to declare the message; but others are convinced this conclusion does not necessarily follow. They stress saving truth as primary, but faithfully expose error in contrast and as a warning. Time, place, and circumstances differ, and so do men. But however that may be, we must be faithful to our trust. We need constantly to review Heaven's mandate to this movement. Our marching orders are exceeding plain.


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L.E.F. is editor of the Ministry

April 1933

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