Challenge!—The advent movement awaits the call of men of vision, faith, and daring to arise and finish their task. Will we give that leadership? Will we respond to the challenge ? We cannot fail if we keep in step with the inspired counsels to this people. We must not plan on staying on in this old world for decades longer. Voluntarily or involuntarily, we will have to detach ourselves from some things to which we are as yet attached. We will have to break with the comforts, conveniences, and ease to be found in lands of peace. We must lay our plans quickly to finish the work amid those "forbidding circumstances" prophecies.
Strange Fire!—Beware of bringing over into the councils of the church the tricks of the political or secular assembly. Clever turns, sharp thrusts, humorous puns, biting sarcasm, driving logic, and scoring invectives belong to the secular arena of debate, not to the church. They may win an argument, defeat an action, and carry the day. But the frown of God will be upon them when they are employed in the church. They are not the mediums used by the Holy Spirit. They are foreign to the Spirit and practice of Christ. He did not use them, and we cannot afford to. Beware of the man who brings the spirit of secularism into the precincts of the sacred. Pat him not on the back, neither flatter and applaud him. His tricks are a source of danger to the church of God. Let us neither use nor condone strange fire on the altar of service.
Pioneering!— Evangelistic emphasis, in these days, seems to be largely focused upon the effective plan of enlisting our resident church members throughout a campaign in laying down a preparatory literature barrage, in personal participation during and following the effort, thus to gain the largest fruitage, or for the ministerial guidance and training of a host of lay evangelists for modest community endeavor. All this is good and necessary. But this presupposes a preexistent church or company in the city or community involved. What shall be done, however. for the great "dark" counties and towns in which there is no resident membership to form a nucleus for systematic literature distribution preliminary to the campaign, and during a campaign to serve as ushers, pianists, soloists, choir members, personal invitationers, and a nucleus in attendance? We must pull in balanced, even lines. We must not neglect the one while pushing the other. These unentered places constitute our most difficult problem and our most arresting challenge—these, and the giant city strongholds. Who has a vision or a burden for this great need, and a genius for compassing it? Here is scope for achievement.
Position! It is wrong to exalt official position above direct soul-saving ministry for God. No higher position exists, no greater honor can come to a man, than direct evangelistic or pastoral ministry. Official position neither confers honor nor imparts wisdom, but only imposes the responsibility of power. Nor is a minister demoted, in God's sight, because he is relieved of conference responsibility. We must never forget that the Papacy was built upon the fallacious argument of the superiority of the episcopacy over the common clergy, and the exaltation of officialism. We must never pattern after her apostate principles. Remember Paul ! He was not the conference president, but he was one of the greatest of all the apostles because of his service. All we are brethren.
Inadequate!—There are those who contend that the hymns and anthems of messageless Babylon comprise the only special sacred music suitable for the church of Zion. They argue that since we do not use a different Bible from the Baptists and the Methodists, therefore we should not use a different hymnology. They thus confuse the Inspired Word with hymns of aspiration and praise written by uninspired men and women. A more accurate parallel would be that of commentaries on the Word and its prophecies, which we properly consult and quote only so far as they harmonize with the Word. We have been compelled to produce, and have produced, our own distinctive literature. We cannot depend upon Baptist, Methodist, or other religious books and periodicals. These ecclesiastical bodies have, as organizations, rejected and cast aside God's special message for this hour. Before 1844, these religious bodies constituted God's true church for the time. But advancing light and its rejection made their literature largely inappropriate and inadequate for today. The same principle applies to much of the messageless music of modern Babylon, which is often but vain repetition, wholly inadequate to compass the musical needs of the full-message remnant church.
L. E. F.
