1. Our Bounden Duty to Fully Instruct
BY C. B. HAYNES, President, Michigan Conference
We are called into being as a movement, and we are ordained to preach as the ministry of that movement, for just one specific reason, and that is to acquaint the world with the full message announcing the coming of Christ. In doing that, we must instruct those to whom we preach in all of those things which go to make up God's final message to the world. As preachers, we are not expected to leave out any part of that which constitutes the threefold message. And I think that when we do leave out any part of the threefold message we are not true to our trust.
I am entirely convinced that our chief business as preachers of the gospel, is to bring men to Jesus Christ, and to see to it that they are soundly converted when brought into the church. That is primary; that is a fundamental thing. I think we do wrong when we bring individuals into the church, no matter how well instructed in all the principles of this faith, if, in spite of all they know, their hearts are not given to Jesus Christ, and they are not genuine Christians. We are not merely to make Seventh-day Adventists. We are to make Seventh-day Adventist Christians.
Having said that, let me go on to say that we have a message to preach. I will not take time to attempt to discuss what is in that message, for we all know. But I am reminded, as I discuss this, that there is a difference of opinion among preachers in our ranks as to the limit of our duties. I have on more than one occasion been present in such a meeting as this, with ministers and other workers, and heard the principle presented that a man who has the gift of an evangelist is expected, in the exercise of that gift, just to bring people to a decision to accept Christ and to unite with the church, and that his evangelistic duty is discharged in full when he has brought them into the church. It was maintained that then it becomes the business and the responsibility of the church to take over that convert to Christ and indoctrinate him in all the teachings of the church. It was said that it is not the business or the responsibility of the evangelist who brings him to accept Christ to indoctrinate him, but that it is the business of the church to instruct converts; and that it is the evangelist's business only to get the members.
I am one who does not believe that theory, and am convinced that it works harm in practice. After considerable experience and rather wide observation, I come to be more and more convinced as the years go by that it is the business of the man who wins converts, not to bring those converts into the church and turn them over to anybody else to be taught what the church believes, but to bring into the church those who know in full what the church believes. And that should be without exception.
It is the business of the evangelist to let his converts know what the church into which he is bringing them, will expect of them; that they will not only profess faith in Jesus Christ, but will have made a decision—a positive, definite decision—to bring their lives into harmony with the practice and belief and teachings of that church in every detail. I think it a pity and a tragedy for any persons to be brought into our church, and after they have been in three months or six months, then find that the church expects of them a course of life about which they have never heard on any occasion. I consider that plain, downright, common deception, nothing else.
I think every person invited to come into the church is entitled to know what that church expects him to do—to keep the Sabbath, to pay tithe, to dress in accordance with the teachings of the Bible, to live in a healthful way in accordance with Scriptural instruction, to take off adornments and jewelry from his or her person, and so forth. I think he is entitled to know that that church practices the ordinance of humility and that the church believes in the gift of prophecy. Don't you? [VowEs: "Amen!"] It is nothing less than a square deal—just fair, honest dealing—to require that much in the way of instruction by every evangelist.
I have heard some evangelists contend that they did not have the gift of. teaching; that they had not been given the gift of "pastor," and consequently they cannot be expected to do the pastor's work or the teacher's work in this matter of instruction; that their gift is that of an evangelist, and when they have brought people into the church, their responsibility ends. I do not believe that doctrine. I believe it is the responsibility of the man who first introduces the person to the truth, before that person is baptized, to make sure not only that that person is first and foremost a Christian who has given his heart to God, but that he is an instructed Christian, an enlightened Christian, knowing all the truth for this time and having had opportunity to make up his mind whether he is going to follow in obedience to that truth and actually do the things which the truth requires of him.
And, my ministerial brethren, we find it works out many and many a time that, when the evangelist neglects this very thorough work in indoctrinating his converts, it becomes next to impossible for anybody else to do it. Very naturally the man who learns the truth from an evangelist looks to that man to learn the whole truth from him. And if the evangelist soft-pedals, if he does not do a complete work, the convert is not willing to receive instruction about other points from other sources. He looks to his father in the truth as surety, and holds that if the matter was an important thing, his father in the truth would have told him. And if his father in the truth has not told him, he feels it is not of any consequence, and it will be a very difficult matter to get him to take it up.
I do not believe it is possible in practice for one man to win souls to Jesus Christ and then turn them over to the church to be instructed, unless he is the one in that church who is going to instruct them. I am convinced, with all the conviction that is in me, that the teaching and preaching which neglects to do this thorough work of instructing converts in every point of the faith, instead of being a contribution to the cause, is a tremendous injury to our work. It is from among those who are not properly instructed that nearly all our church troubles come, that the drift toward the world sets in—the paint, lipstick, eyebrow plucking, jewelry, adornment, and all the rest.
I feel, my dear associates in the ministry, that we who are here should line ourselves up in this matter of faithful and thorough instruction of every convert on every essential God has given us and for the giving of which He holds us responsible. [Voices: "Amen!"]
2. Base All on Revelation 14
By J.W. Kent, Evangelist, New South Wales
First of all I want to say a great big Amen to all that Elder Haynes has said. As for myself, I can simply tell you how I seek to present our specific message. I have found that, as for me, the sooner I get to the heart of this message, where the throb beat of the whole movement is found, then the sooner I am getting down to the real basis of helping my audience and of winning the honesthearted. So I do not waste very much time on preliminaries. I go straight to the place where the message says, "The third angel followed them, saying, . . . If any man . . . receive his mark-in his--forehead-or i3rYris lrand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God," and I make plain just what that means.
Sometimes I find my fellow preachers in the field getting a little bit jumpy, and they say they think I ought to hold up a bit, and not begin so soon to mention the third angel's warning. But this constitutes the very heart of our mission and message to the world. They say, "Brother Kent, you had better hold off preaching on such subjects, and wait till we get the people to camp meeting." But if we preach all over the broad field of Biblical doctrine, yet do not teach the message for this time, we are not preaching God's gospel for this hour. You can preach the third angel's message and teach the mark of the beast without offending anybody; and you can preach it straight and strong. So I preach the message right from the beginning, and try to get people to decide for all that the message means.
One of the leading people in the city of Sydney, an army officer, came to hear me speak on the third angel's message. When I had finished, he said, "Well, I think you are right."
I said, "Brother, what are you going to do about it? That is the point."
It was three o'clock in the afternoon, and I asked him to stay for the evening meeting. "No," he said, "I have heard what I want to hear this afternoon." That was the first Adventist sermon that man had ever heard. And as a result of that sermon he accepted this truth, with his wife and family—all because he heard the message he wanted and needed at that first sermon, although some would think it wise to lead up gradually to the presentation of our definite, testing truths.
I believe it is the duty of the evangelist to , teach the people all that properly belongs to our message—the impending advent, the claims of the law, the nature of man, the punishment of the wicked, the Sabbath, the mark of the beast. Give the whole message winsomely right to them. And just as quickly as you can, get their decision on all points. I spend about nine months preaching the third angel's message from Revelation 14, and preaching nothing else.
But, you ask, "Do you preach the Spirit of prophecy right in the open meeting?" Yes. The people all know our attitude toward the message given through Mrs. E. G. White. When you evangelists here in America advertise as Seventh-day Adventists, people come to hear you; but it is not that way in Australia. They think that if we do not belong to the Mormons or some other such unpopular cult, then we do belong to the people who are led by a woman, Mrs. E. G. White. And they are very much opposed to that. So I put this subject right before them in the open meeting, "What Became of the Prophets?"—not "profits" but "prophets."
Brethren and sisters, I want to tell you I support the statement that the evangelist ought to teach the people why they are Seventh-day Adventists. Now as to the question, "What will you do to teach them their need of Jesus Christ?" I don't believe we ought to preach evangelical sermons apart from the truths of this message. This message is all-embracing, the blood of Jesus Christ runs right through it. So when you preach this message, you must preach Christ in the message—all the way through, in every sermon, every night. We are not to study what we can do to weed out certain subjects until we think it is safe to try to attract people to the study of the law of God and to the keeping of the Sabbath. No! Put the salvation that is in Jesus Christ in this message every night in every sermon. That is what I believe. That is the only way I have dealt with the people; and I know it will work.
3. Make Christ and the Message Inseparable
BY C. T. EVERSON, Evangelist, Angwin, California
The message that we are to give to the world is "Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." And this consequently takes in everything. It is not limited just to this or that truth, but embraces everything. Difficulty often arises through failure to recognize this fact. The effort is sometimes made to try to get people converted, and then to teach them the doctrines and have them thoroughly instructed. I want to say that no matter how thoroughly instructed a man may be doctrinally, if you do not tie the doctrines up with Jesus Christ, they will not do him any good. If the man coming to your meetings can separate, in his thinking, Jesus Christ from the particular truth you are teaching, he will soon leave the doctrine out. There is too often a separation between doctrinal sermons and those presenting Christ. But Jesus Christ Himself should be the heart of every doctrine, so that in accepting Him, one must accept His doctrine. They must be inseparable. It is essential for every doctrine to be tied up with Jesus Christ, and you must give every man a chance to accept Christ and His doctrine, because Christ is all and in all. You must not preach Jesus Christ at one time, and the doctrines at another; you must put the two together. And the most important part of it all is—if you are going to preach Jesus Christ—to have Christ in your own heart. The man who knows all about the doctrines, but does not have Jesus Christ in his heart, will not be a valuable preacher even if he tells the people everything he believes. It is Christ in the doctrines which counts.
Take the immortality question, for example. It is quite possible to preach on conditional immortality in such a way that people do not sense the real meaning and provision behind it all, but only a cold doctrine. But you can teach immortality as inseparably connected with Jesus Christ in such a way that people will be attracted by it. The Bible says our "life is hid with Christ in God," and that when this life is over there is a life beyond; that while we may be sleeping in the grave, we know that our life is hid with Christ in God. And when Christ appears, then we shall appear with Him in glory. If you tie the immortality question up with Jesus Christ from the very beginning and all the way through, people will not have much trouble about accepting it.
It is possible to talk so much about the "worm that dieth not," and hell-fire that is not quenched, that by the time you are through, you forget to teach that the Lord Jesus Christ has brought deliverance from all this, and that if we come to Him, He will save us from hell-fire and give us a home in the eternal kingdom.
Read that scripture about, "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out;" or the hand, or the foot, cut it off. What does that mean? Tell them it means if anyone has a sin in his life, whatever that sin may be, even though to separate from it would be as difficult as having an arm or a foot cut off, by all means he should do it, rather than go into hell, where the fire is not quenched. When your hearer gets the right view of the matter, he sees Jesus standing with the tears streaming down His face. He sees that Jesus is speaking, not simply because of the fires and the worm, but he sees that He is deeply concerned lest He might lose this soul; for if the sinner falls into that fire, he will never get out. And then you plead, Strive to be saved, because I want to see you over in the glory country when the work on earth is done. Put with that the text where Jesus says, "Where I am, there ye may be also," and it makes a wonderful appeal. Tell them, "O, my friends, Jesus means for you to give up your sins, and not be lost; because if you fall into that fire, you will never get out."
That is just a suggestion of how it is possible to tie up every doctrine inseparably with Jesus Christ, so that every doctrine will shine forth with His glory and make our message truly "the everlasting gospel."
