Lift the Trailing Standards

Liberalism is not affecting our church doctrin­ally so much as it is morally and spiritually.

By J.C. Stevens

Liberalism is "in the very air we breathe," to use a common expression. It has per­meated all religion and all society. Trickling for a considerable time into our own church, it has swollen to a sizable stream, with such a strong current as seriously to threaten the church. It is insidious, insistent, and persist­ent, and must be met and opposed by those who desire to see the church and its standards pre­served in their purity. And we as ministers have an inescapable responsibility in relation thereto.

Liberalism is not affecting our church doctrin­ally so much as it is morally and spiritually. As a consequence of this influx of liberalism, standards of moral and Christian conduct are falling, when, as the Spirit of prophecy admonishes, they should be lifted higher and higher. Many are becoming increasingly care­less in regard to Sabbath observance. Many are, after the manner of the world, participating in all kinds of worldly pleasures and amuse­ments, following the foolish fashion fads of flapperdom, becoming loose in moral conduct, and careless and indifferent as to religious duties, in the meanwhile pleading justification for all this on the ground that times have changed.

The Sabbath is observed by many with the laxness that characterizes Sunday observance. The Sabbath is, to altogether too many, a holi­day instead of a holy day. It is a day of pleas­ure riding and secular visitation, resulting in speaking one's "own words." Isa. 58:13. It is often desecrated by reading secular newspapers. Some think that "the changing times in which we live" are justification for modifying our standards of Sabbath keeping. One sister was telling me how strict her mother had been in the olden days about the keeping of the Sab­bath. "Why," she exclaimed, "mother would not even boil potatoes on the Sabbath." And she argued at some length that Christ said the Sabbath was "made for man," and that meant that man should use it for his pleasure in joy riding, picnicking, swimming, boating, and the like. This was her interpretation of Christ's words. Now this is liberalism in the extreme degree, but our churches are not free from it even in this form.

There is a changed attitude on the part of some toward worldly pleasure. I recently talked with a young woman, a church member, about her theatergoing. She said, "Elder Stevens, I work hard in the office all day, and in the evening I feel the need of recreation, and I go to the theater to get it." I answered: "I be­lieve, too, that one needs recreation, but I doubt that one needs to attend the theater to get it. There was doubtless a theater in Jeru­salem when Jesus was on earth. If you should read in one of the Gospels that when Christ was weary He said to His disciples, 'Come, let us go up to Jerusalem today to the theater for a bit of recreation,' would you not think that strange?" "Yes," she replied, "I should think it strange; but you see times have changed."

"Times have changed!" That is the justifi­cation for changed attitudes and trailing stand­ards.

Some are following all the foolish fashion fads that come along,—plucked, penciled, and arched eyebrows, varicolored finger nails, lip­stick, and the like. The Spirit of prophecy truly says: "Fashion is deteriorating the intel­lect and eating out the spirituality of our peo­ple. Obedience to fashion is pervading our Seventh-day Adventist churches, and is doing more than any other power to separate our people from God."—"Testimonies," Vol. IV, p. 647. This was written many years ago. If fashion was pervading our churches then, what can be said now? Deterioration of the intel­lect is plainly and painfully evident. This is the reason so many are following these foolish, nonsensical fashions mentioned above. It is a sign of a certain mentality.

Again, in spite of all the light we have had on health reform, many of our people are still eating flesh; and, strange to say, some of our ministers. I do not mean to imply that absti­nence from flesh is all there is to health re­form, but this is particularly emphasized in the Bible and in the Spirit of prophecy.

"Health reform is to do among our people a work which it has not yet done. There are those who ought to be awake to the danger of meat eating, who are still eating the flesh of animals, thus endangering the physical, men­tal. and spiritual health. Many who are now only half converted on the question of meat eating will go from God's people, to walk no more with them."—"Counsels on Health," p. 575.

Still, after all these years of light on this question, our denomination is to a disturbing extent a flesh-eating people. Rigid vegetarians are exceedingly rare. Of course they do not eat pork, but they feel justified in eating chicken, fish, and such like, contending that chicken and fish are not flesh—as if they were fruit or vegetable! Some of our people, when certain preachers visit them, feel that they have to have chicken dinners; for they under­stand beforehand that this is what the preacher likes.

Now it is the work of the faithful minister of God under the light of the third angel's message to bear plain and positive testimony against all these things and against all this liberalizing and modernizing tendency. Our message must not be a tame message, we are told in the Spirit of prophecy. We are to "cry aloud and spare not; lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgres­sion, and the house of Jacob their sins." Ours is the Elijah message, which is a reform mes­sage, and one of stern rebuke.

"Today there is need of the voice of stern rebuke; for grievous sins have separated the people from God. . . . The smooth sermons so often preached make no lasting impression; the trumpet does not give a certain sound. Men are not cut to the heart by the plain, sharp truths of God's word."—"Prophets and Kings," p. 140.

We must call sin by its right name. It will not do merely to preach that the Lord must save us from our sins before Jesus comes. We must be specific. We must show God's uncom­promising attitude toward sin. We must show them wherein they are sinning. We must put our finger on the sins; and we as preachers must ourselves first renounce these things, and then denounce them. We must show the peo­ple what true Sabbath keeping is, and wherein they are breaking God's holy day. We must not condone by our silence theatergoing, card playing, dancing, pleasure seeking, and follow­ing the foolish fads of the day. It does not meet the issue of the hour to speak against worldliness in general platitudes. We must be specific.

We must ourselves set the example on Sab­bath reform, health reform, dress reform, and the question of worldliness, and then bear posi­tive testimony against transgression in these lines. We ourselves must walk in the light before we can lead others into all the light. Of course, if we do this, the liberalists in our churches will call us "Puritans," "old fogies," and so forth. Some will not endure sound doctrine, and many will not bear the straight testimony of the true witness to the Laodi­ceans, but the straight message must be borne. The honest in heart will receive the message, and we shall have discharged our duty, and helped to prepare a people to stand in the final shaking time. Only thus will we have cleared our own garments of their blood.

Glendale, Calif.

By J.C. Stevens

September 1934

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