God's Twofold Call to His Church

A revival of true godliness and a summons to larger evangelism. An opening address, Autumn Council, St. Paul, Minnesota, October, 1940.

By T. L. McELHANY, President of the General Conference

I believe that this Autumn Council is the most momentous session ever held by a body of workers representing this cause. I believe it is no exaggeration to say that we have come to an hour when above all hours in the history of this work the decisions of a council like this are of supreme importance. May our prayers be directed constantly to our heavenly Father. May we have wisdom to meet all the crises of these troubled hours.

As we come to the opening hour of this Council, where do we stand in relation to all that is happening in the world? Have we come imbued with a due sense of our respon­sibility as leaders in the cause of God ? It would be well for each one to examine his heart in relation to these questions. We must be responsible men—men who so understand the times that we know what ought to be done in days like these.

It is not necessary tonight that I should say much to you regarding the state or condi­tion of the world. You are all well informed in regard to that. But there are two things that I believe are very important and necessary to emphasize. The first has to do with the state of the church. Before attempting in any way to discuss this, I wish to read to you the prophecy of Joel 2:1: "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion." May I ask what Zion rep­resents here?

[Voices: "The church."] You all agree that this is a prover interpretation. "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion," in the church, in the temple of God's people.

"Sound an alarm in My holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble : for the day of the Lord corneth, for it is nigh at hand ; a day of dark­ness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong."

When we speak of the state of the church I believe we should have a wholesome regard for the call sounded in this 'Chapter, one of the most serious and solemn calls in all the Bible. I haven't time to read it all, but the eleventh verse says, "The Lord shall utter His voice before His army: for His camp is very great: for He is strong that executeth His word." Yes, our Leader, our General, is strong. He has never lost a battle. May He help us to be faithful soldiers in His artily.

After the coming of the day of the Lord is described, the question is asked; "Who can abide it?" Can you? I pray to God that every one of us here may abide it. But if we do, it will be on certain conditions that are laid down in the twelfth verse:

"Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning : and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God : for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repeuteth Him of the evil."

What does that call demand of us ? That we should turn to Him with all our hearts., It is too late for us to have a divided alle­giance, too late for us to attempt to conform to the world and yet profess to be followers of God. The hour demands our entire heart's allegiance. "Turn ye even to Me with all your heart," the Lord says.

I have often thought of that simple little story, told years ago, of the mother who brought her little boy to see a world-renowned evangelist. The mother greatly desired to have the little lad shake hands with this man of God, thinking that an impression for good might be made upon his heart. When they reached the evangelist, he put out his hand to shake hands with the lad. But the boy ex­tended his left hand.

"No, no," said the evangelist, "shake hands with your right hand, not your left."

Then the little fellow put out his clenched right fist. "No, no, my lad, open your hand," he was told.

The boy put out his hand again with but two fingers open.

"No, open it right up."

When the little fellow finally opened up his hand, he was clutching a marble. A child­ish toy was to him more precious than shaking hands with a great man.

This illustrates the way many of us attempt to serve God. We come reaching out our left hand, clutching with our right hand things we hold more precious. And then even after we reach out the right hand, perhaps we are clutching some indulgence, some sin, trying to cling to the world. But Christ wants us to turn to Him with all our heart.

Reading on from the fifteenth verse of Joel 2, you will recall that it is a call to the entire church. It includes all, from the infant up to the aged. The ministers, the priests of the Lord, are all included in the great revival called for. Let it be remembered that this is a prophecy of the last days, the very time when the Lord is about to come. The hour has come when such a work as this should be seen in mighty power. In all our planning, in all our praying, we ought to be crying to God to bring into our own hearts and into the church just such a work as is called for here.

Where do we stand today ? We know that the world is prepared for the coming crisis, and the Lord is ready with His part. What is lacking? There is only one thing lacking today, and that is the preparedness of the church. What we need today is to see taking place in the church the great last-day revival prophesied of here. Jesus calls for a state of preparation. I think over and over again of those words of the Master, "Be ye also ready : for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh." These words ought to ring out in our own hearts and lives, and in the experience of the church.

I am speaking tonight to a group of church leaders, to those who are responsible for the state of the church, to the guardians, the custodians of the church, as it were—the men who have had placed in their hands a most serious and solemn trusteeship. And when we talk about the state of the church, we ought also to talk about our own state, our own condition. I believe with all my heart that the greatest need of the church, and our greatest need as church leaders, is to be thor­oughly converted, revived, and reformed. Do you believe it? [Voices: "Amen."]

How many believe it? [Many hands raised.]

I would gladly step aside and let any man come here and stand at this desk, and express to you any need that he conceives to be greater than that, if such a need exists. 1 do not believe, my dear fellow workers, that there is anything that transcends this in importance, that has more urgency attached to it, than this very question. The Lord is coming! Are we discharging our responsibility in leading and guiding, directing and molding, the church in preparation for that event ?

You remember those words that come ring­ing down to us from the writings of the Spirit of prophecy—"A revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs." Those are not my words, but the words of inspiration. Would to God that we might see a revival of true godliness spring­ing up now. It would make a difference in the lives of many people. The vanities and attractions and foolishness of the world would be cast out of the lives of many of our people. If we as leaders fully sensed this revival, it would make a difference in the way we act. Would to God we might see it taking place. This is an hour for us to earnestly pray it down from heaven, for that is the only way we shall ever have it. Such a revival will not come into effect as a result of resolutions made by some committee. It will come only when we confess our sins and put ourselves in line for such a great blessing.

In the pressure of our work here, let us not forget that as the background against which all our work must be wrought, the greatest of our needs is this revival of true godliness. As a group of church leaders, do we feel that our task in preparing the church for the com­ing of the Lord is fully accomplished? Do we say we have wrought and finished our task? Are we ready to lay down our trustee­ship in this regard? How about it, my fellow workers? Is there anything more that we can do in behalf of the church? Before this Council adjourns we ought to give careful study to our responsibility to the church. We fail in discharging our responsibility if we fail in this respect. I want to ask again that you pray while we are here, not only for the things I have already mentioned, but that we may see a revival of true godliness taking place in our ranks everywhere.

I am conscious of the fact that we have devoted people who are living lives of right­eousness by faith, walking consciously with God, and I thank God for them. But I am thinking of many who do not have, have not had, that kind of experience, who have not yet yielded themselves to that leadership, that the fruits of righteousness may be worked out fully in their lives. We need in our churches a revival of true godliness. What do you say ? [Voices: "Amen."]

The second thing I wish to empha­size is the work of the church. Weeks ago as I began to think of this meeting, there came to me a deep conviction that along with our prayers and endeavors to attain to a deeper spiritual work in our hearts and in our churches, we need to sound a new call to a greater evangelism.* The church exists for but one purpose on earth, and that is to win souls for the eternal kingdom of God. It was founded for the great purpose of carrying the gospel to the world. At this late hour in the history of the world we have come to the time when, as never before, we need to em­phasize the importance of evangelism.

A state of piety does not mean a state of idleness or inaction. Think of it now. We face a doomed and dying world. As we look about us and study the situation, we discover a world without God and without hope. Is it not so? I believe I can say, without any show of bigotry, that God has placed in our hands the only message today that is intended by Him to work for the salvation of men in a lost world.

I am not going to attempt to analyze the re­ligious situation as it exists at the present time, but we know that faith is at a low ebb. Men are confused in their thinking, until today there is no great voice sounding in the world, pointing the way of hope and salvation. But to this people God has committed the last great call to prepare for His coming kingdom. Does that entail responsibility? It is a fact that ought to humble us and drive us to our knees in an endeavor to discover the best way to discharge that responsibility. This is a. serious, solemn hour for the world and the people of the world. But it is tenfold more serious to you and to me, for we are custodians of the last message that God intends for the world. And to the extent that we fail in the execution of that vital commission, to just that extent do we bring upon ourselves a greater degree of responsibility. May God forbid that we should fail in this time.

I wonder if we are satisfied with the impres­sion this message is making on the world at the present time. Are we satisfied with medi­ocrity? With inefficiency? I am not expect­ing you to answer, of course, but I hope you are thinking. I cannot help wondering if we are not too well satisfied with things as they are. We are too much like a door swinging to and fro on its hinges—always moving, but never getting anywhere, never reaching any objective. Are we making sustained and well-demonstrated efforts to lift the quality of our work to higher levels? Are we plan­ning to reach a higher degree of efficiency ?

Mark well what I say, for I say it with deep conviction: We will never accomplish our task if we keep on along the lines on. which we are now working. As I read the Bible and the Spirit of prophecy, I see laid out an entirely different program from the one we are following now. I see an intensification of our present program. The time has conic when the church ought to be thoroughly aroused.

I do not wish by what I say to depreciate the worthy efforts that are being made, for I do believe that the Spirit of God has been prompting men to plan and to execute and to accomplish things. Since coming here I have talked with some of the brethren about the efforts that are being conducted in their fields. I see that God is blessing and adding souls where the work is being planned for and energetically pushed. May we see that spirit intensified and multiplied everywhere

I have been deeply interested to see the de­velopment of the missionary spirit in our churches. I have been glad for the efforts that have been made to train hundreds of our lay brethren to go out and proclaim the truth. I believe that every church member ought to be an active missionary, earnestly consecrated and doing his all to help spread this blessed truth. But what we need today is some Pauls and some Timothys, men mightily en­dued with power, stalwart preachers, to go out into the high places of the earth. We need men to hold aloft the blazing torch of advance, men whose tongues are anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power, proclaiming the mes­sage of Jesus' soon coming. Do you be­lieve it? [Voices: "Amen."]

Then why don't we have them?

Let us analyze the situation. We should not be satisfied with any plan or method that misdirects or misuses the talents of men. We have in this cause many men of outstanding capacity and ability. But too often we are misdirecting their efforts. [Voices: "That is true."] We have them tied up with lines of work for which they are not fitted. We smother their talent and misdirect their efforts. Tonight I am speaking to leaders who I be­lieve are responsible for changing this situa­tion. Our workers ought to be placed where they can do the things they are best qualified to do.

It is a fact that today we are using the tal­ents of the majority of our laboring force in pastoring our churches.

[Voices: "That is true."]

You brethren and sisters here tonight who are members of our churches, doubtless like to have pastors, but do you know that the ma­jority of our preachers ought to be out preach­ing as evangelists instead of pastoring you folk ? That is the Lord's plan.

I wish to call the attention of this assembly to the".fact that to a large extent we have departed\from the Lord's plan. Is not that the truth ? Are we afraid to acknowledge it? The time has come when we ought to allow our working force to herald the message of Christ's soon coming. Oh, but you say, if we did that our churches would appeal to the conference for someone to come over and help them. But why can't we train our lay breth­ren to help care for the church flock, as well as to go out in lay preaching? And why can we not train our church officers to help in this work to a large extent, and release our preachers to go out and preach the message?

I suppose the larger part of the young men who come out of our colleges and enter the ministry, go straight from the schools to a dis­trict, and have oversight of several churches. Many of these young men do not know the first principles of how to meet the difficulties that arise in our churches. Perhaps it is a blessing that when I started in the work we did not have districts or anything of that kind. I was in the work preaching for seven years before I was allowed to get near enough to a church to have anything to do with its care and oversight. I was sent out to a locality in which the truth had never been preached, and held meetings. I wish more could have that experience now.

Many of those who come out from the col­leges could develop into outstanding evan­gelists. We do have some, and they are doing a good work. But we ought to have many more like them. We ought to train and de­velop, and bring on to the scene of action, a group of younger workers equipped to meet the conditions of this time.

It is a great temptation for those of us who are older to feel that the younger men should work just as we used to work, but conditions have changed in the world. Years ago we were preaching to people who believed in the Bible. Many of them were converted and had a Christian experience. But today, to whom are our young men preaching ? The larger number of them—pardon me for say­ing it bluntly—are heathen. They are just as much heathen as the people in India. Our young men ought to be trained to meet the present situation. Those of us who are older should not insist that they follow the methods we followed, because they are meeting differ­ent conditions. But they should he trained for this line of work. I would like to see a thou­sand young trained evangelists raised up in the cities of this and other lands to tell the story of Jesus' soon coming.

Let us never make the mistake of believing that the day of public evangelism is past Sometimes I hear men say that. They think that the work is going to be finished by lay efforts. But there has never been a better hour in the history of the world for public evangelism. People are anxious to know "what these things mean." And those who know any­thing about Seventh-day Adventists think that we have the key to the situation. This is the time to preach the message. Let us plan for it. Let us not deprive young men of the training that is necessary to develop into strong, stalwart preachers.

I beg of you not to let my appeal pass as something of no consequence. I believe that deep down in your hearts you realize that all I have said is true, that an appeal of this kind ought to be heeded. I trust that while we are here together we may discover ways and means of developing the workers needed in these outstanding hours of the world's his­tory.

The hour is here when new power, new vitality, and new action ought to possess this movement. This message ought to be the greatest thing in the world today. It ought to be making a tremendous impression upon the world, for it is God's last call to the kingdom. May God help us to realize, as we have never realized before, the responsibility that rests upon us. The time has come to call the church into universal action. Every facility, every talent, is needed. Above all, the time has come when we need to have every activity endue 1 and energized by the mighty power of the Holy Spirit.

The hour is late. Soon this old world will crash to its final doom. We are too near the end to live and act like the world. May God help us to be a distinct people, a separate people. It is time for the church to confess her sins, put away her lukewarnmess, and change her garments of heaviness for the robes of Jesus' righteousness. May God help us to be praying men and women with a deep sense of our responsibility.

* See action adopted from the Plans Committee at the Autumn Council, St. Paul, Minnesota, October 22, 1940, elsewhere in this issue.—Editor.


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By T. L. McELHANY, President of the General Conference

January 1941

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