This message constitutes the commission of Seventh-day Adventists, and therefore our commission as its ministers. This is the message which Adventists have taught through the years. Indeed, the denomination has no excuse for existence, except as it shall keep before it this objective. The enemy of all righteousness will ever seek to divert us from this purpose. He will seek to corrupt the faith and experience of the remnant church, even as he accomplished it in the history of Israel of old. This we should keep constantly in mind.
Forsaking First Principles
Of their experience we read that "the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord, that He did for Israel." But after the death of these pioneers "there arose another generation. . . . which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which He had done for Israel." "And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers." Judges 2: 7, 10, 12.
This was likewise true of the Christian church in the second century. The apostle Paul declared that the mystery of iniquity was at work in his day. The changes wrought in the church by the close of the second century were indeed alarming. As the apostles and older disciples retired to their graves, their children, with the new converts to the faith, both Jews and Gentiles, came forward and remodeled the gospel cause, robbing it of many of its distinctive features, bringing it down to the common level and to the more ready acceptance of the worldling.
Several years ago I visited, in the suburbs of London, the church in which John Wesley preached. It was interesting to climb up into that high old pulpit, and feel that I stood in the very place where this man of God cried out against the formalism and worldliness of the nominal church and preached the message of God's free grace. A little way from the church I visited Wesley's humble home. Its appointments and furnishings are preserved the same as when he left it. The guide pointed out the little room, about eight by ten feet, which had been Wesley's special place of prayer for thirteen years. Divining, perhaps, the thought in my mind, the guide passed on, and I entered that room and knelt in prayer. I asked God to give me the spirit of consecration and earnestness which characterized this great Christian leader.
As I went my way, I was led to compare the humble beginnings of Methodism with what that church is now. I thought: "If John Wesley were brought back to life, would he recognize in Methodism of today the humble people of sincere faith and simple worship which he was instrumental, under God, in rallying around his standard?" I recognize that in this great church there are many sincere Christians. They deplore, even as do I, the loss of power and the spirit of worldliness which characterize so many professed followers of Christ at the present time.
And then my thoughts turned to the church of which I am a member. I was led to compare the humble beginnings of our movement with the church of today,—the simple faith, the humility, the loyalty, and the consecration of the pioneers, with that of our present-day membership; and I said, "Can it be possible that our church will go the way of the churches around us? Shall we lose our simple faith, our simplicity, our consecration? Shall we come to trust in ritualism for righteousness, in numbers, in plans, in machinery, instead of in the power of the Holy Spirit? Will the elements of skepticism and doubt which are permeating the churches around us, honeycomb our church?"
I have absolute faith in the triumph of this message. I believe that this movement with which you and I are connected will triumph when Christ comes. He will take through a people true and tried. I am glad that I can believe that the large majority of our membership are maintaining the integrity of their faith, and are exemplifying in their lives the principles of the gospel of Christ. But on the other hand, I must recognize that there are far too many who are permitting the spirit of formalism, of indifference, of worldliness, to shape and mold their experience. And in this the ministry is not exempt.
We must admit, much as we deplore the fact, that the same unholy influences which are causing the spiritual disintegration of the churches around us, are affecting in altogether too great a measure the lives of our members. As Jehoshaphat of old joined affinity with Ahab, so many professed Seventh-day Adventists are joining affinity with the world.
Dangers Threatening the Church
As foretold in the word of prophecy, we see in the remnant church today some who are spiritually asleep, some who are permitting the cares of this life to surcharge their hearts to the neglect of the service of Christ. There are those who are saying in their hearts, "My Lord delayeth His coming," and are eating and drinking with the drunken. Some feel rich and increased in goods, and are looking to their own works of righteousness for salvation. There are found in the church lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, men and women having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof in their lives.
Nor can we evade the issue by reasoning, as I heard a Seventh-day Adventist preacher do some time ago, that standards have changed, and that Heaven does not hold us to so strict account today as ten or fifteen or fifty years ago. This is a fatal delusion and a pernicious teaching. God is the same, and His divine standard of character is the same in every age, and He will require no less of us than of those who lived in the less favored periods of the past.
Thousands of sincere believers deplore the conditions to which I have referred. They recognize the need of revival and reformation. They believe the time has come to cry mightily to God to arouse His church to a new and deeper sense of their great need, to save His people in this hour of temptation and to give not His heritage to reproach. Heaven will respond to this appeal, and showers of blessing will be poured upon the suppliants of His grace.
We need not be surprised at the conditions we see. We are instructed that, as we near the close of human history, a large worldly class will develop in the church, who, in the final controversy, will array themselves against God and His truth. On the other hand, we are told that a people true and tried will stand in the simplicity of the gospel and the power of righteousness to meet Christ at His coming. This is the hour of testing. The line of division is being drawn in the church. While we see the careless and the indifferent, thank God we see also the faithful and loyal, and these in God's sight constitute the true Israel.
We have come to a time when, as stated by the messenger of the Lord, we must draw warmth from the coldness of others, courage from their cowardice, loyalty from their treason. It is upon those who sigh and cry for the evil that they see, that the seal of God will be placed at last. This protest must be in the life even more than in the words. Those who set themselves against the sins in the church will make no self-righteous claims. They will not seek to measure others by their own narrow conceptions. They will indulge in no unkind criticism against those who are going astray.
Sinners cannot be won by criticism; they must be won by love. We cannot win our children to Christ by unkind words. We must recognize the influence of prayer, the value of humble, sincere Christian living, the power of the Holy Spirit. We must be living epistles, known and read of all men; because if others cannot see the gospel of Christ in our lives, they will not be able to see it in our preaching.
Washington, D. C.
