Editorial Keynotes

As ministers, we are expected to do many things. We are administrators, charged with the care of churches or conferences. We are called upon to extend the kingdom of God. This work demands financial and organizing ability. No work on earth requires a greater versatility than the work of the gospel minister. As pastors, we are expected to know our flocks, to share their experiences of joy or grief, and to give advice suitable for each experience. Yes, we are supervisors, counselors, financiers, employers of labor, and a hundred other things. But greater than all these is our mis­sion as preachers. We are ambassadors sent to represent the court of heaven. We are spokesmen for God.

In emphasizing the importance of preaching, there is grave possibility of being misunder­stood—for these are days when values are measured largely by material standards, and preaching can be measured by no such standard. But preaching is God's method. John came preaching. The Master came preaching. He ordained twelve and sent them forth to preach. The Christian church was built by preaching. It was preachers, not politicians, that turned the world upside down. "It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." And "how shall they hear without a preacher ?" asks the great apostle.

The Reformation was fought and won by the power ,of preaching. And in the closing work of God, preaching will play its greatest part since apostolic days.

"The great work of the gospel is not to close with less manifestation of the power of God than marked its opening. The prophecies which were fulfilled in the outpouring of the former rain at the opening of the gospel, are again to be fulfilled in the latter rain at its close. . . .

"Servants of God, with their faces lighted up and shining with holy consecration, will hasten from place to place to proclaim the message from heaven. . . . The message will be carried not so much by argument as by the deep conviction of the Spirit of God."—"The Great Controversy," pp. 611, 612.

When the Patmos prophet foresaw the rise of this message which was to carry the glad news of the soon-returning Saviour to every land, he likened it to an angel flying "in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach." Preaching will form the most vital part of the messenger's work right up to the close of time. It is the devil's plan to minimize the power of the pulpit, for he well knows that there is nothing under heaven that can equal the power of a God-inspired pulpit. And adversely there is no scandal so great as an ignorant and ineffective pulpit.

The Christian minister is both prophet and priest in one, but it is the pro­phetic element that makes his work effective. He is a spokesman, called to speak for God. When he loses the sense of that high office and degenerates into a mere priest, becoming con­cerned with incense and offerings, the per­formance of ceremonies for God, then he be­comes impotent. It would be well occasionally to ask oneself : "Am I a priest or a prophet ? Is my service mere ceremony, or am I a voice for God?"

A truly prophetic ministry will always exert a wide influence. The size of the church build­ing or the congregation may not be the true measure of a man's ministry. John Wycliffe ministered in a little church. The building which became the center of his work still stands in the little town of Lutterworth. It is small, but the mighty tide of evangelism that rose from that place of prayer swept over England, across Europe, and lapped even the shores of Asia. There were many larger churches in the land, but they made no special contribution to that generation. It was a pro­phetic preacher that became the "Morning Star of the Reformation."

But Wycliffe was more than a preacher. He was a scholar. The power of his logic and the beauty of his language have rarely been equaled. Here is a lesson for preachers today. Are we satisfied to be mere echoes filling the role of petty priestlings, or are we studying to become authorities in our fields ? Jesus spoke with authority because He was an authority.

John the Baptist was pronounced the greatest prophet of all time, not because he wrote any of the Scriptures, but because he became the greatest interpreter of the Messianic prophe­cies. His ministry was not mere sensationalism or emotionalism. It was a mighty unfolding of Scripture. His message was delivered in such a way that men were compelled to listen. "He was a burning and a shining light," de­clared the Saviour. He was no mere reflection. He shone ; but he burned as he shone. And all "Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan," felt the fire of his evangel. Plain, pungent, purposeful preaching, full of heart appeal, marked the mission of the Baptist. He was a prophet on fire with a message, and the whole populacq was stirred. Notice the various types to whom his message appealed, as recorded in Luke 3 :

1. The "people"—the ordinary everyday crowd that makes up communities.
2. The "publicans"—those despised tax collectors who were just cogs in the Roman machine of state, whose extortions and injustices had embittered a people cringing beneath the lash of a cruel totali­tarianism.
3. The "soldiers"—those harsh, brutal men, whose whole training was in the black art of violence and bloodshed, whose hardened hearts were unmoved by the splash of a widow's tears, to whom broken homes and blasted lives were the songs of success.

When the sermon can stir the hearts of such as these, that sermon is on fire. John was no make-believe, no mere reflection, no imitation.

He was no gas log in the hearth. He burned as he shined. His was not merely oratory; His was Spirit-moved emotion. Oratory is only skin-deep, but emotion goes to the bone—to the marrow of the bone.

"The price of shining is burning," declares Charles L. Goodell. "If a man greatly lights the world, he will consume the oil of his life. The cross still conquers men, and he who will climb to it for the love he has, will find a crown upon its rugged bars."

John was a prophetic preacher. Not only did he preach on the prophecies, but the same Spirit that had indited the Word guided him in his study and endued him with power. He was ablaze with the truth of heaven. His was evangelism at white heat. His sermons were more than pretty platitudes or speculative prog­nostications. They were more than lectures about God. John was speaking for God, and the whole countryside knew it. In his hands the scrolls of the prophets flashed with a new splendor. But he did not get his message from man. Note the following on page 103 of "The Desire of Ages :"

"Alone in the silent night he read God's promise to Abraham of a seed numberless as the stars. . . With awed yet exultant spirit he searched in the prophetic scrolls the revelations of the Messiah's coming. . . . Isaiah's rapt portrayals of the Messiah's glory were his study by day and by night. . . . He looked upon the King in His beauty, and self was forgotten. . . . He was ready to go forth as Heaven's messenger, unawed by the human, because he had looked upon the Divine. He could stand erect and fearless in the presence of earthly monarchs, because he had bowed before the King of kings."

John the Baptist was the type of the second advent messenger. Are we search­ing the word of God with the same diligence as did the herald of the first advent? Are we putting ourselves to the stretch in study and preparation for the tremendous task committed to us?

"The, men who now stand before the people as representatives of Christ have generally more ability than they have training, but they do not put their faculties to use, making the most of their time and opportunities. . . 

"They might have done tenfold more work intelli­gently had they cared to become intellectual giants. Their whole experience in their high calling is cheapened because they are content to remain where they are. Their efforts to acquire knowledge will not in the least hinder their spiritual growth if they will study with right motives and proper aims."—"Testimonies to Ministers," P. ¹94.

We must be known as students. The expression "intellectual giants" is challenging. "Daniel was an intellectual giant; yet he was continually seeking for greater knowledge, for higher attainments."—"Testimonies," Vol. IV, p. 569.

"Cultivated intellects are now needed in every part of the work of God ; for novices cannot do the work acceptably in unfolding the hidden treasure to enrich souls."—"Testimonies to Ministers," p. 195.

"When the human agents shall exercise their facul­ties to acquire knowledge, to become deep-thinking men ; when they, as the greatest witnesses for God and the truth, shall have won in the field of investi­gation... then even judges and kings will be brought to acknowledge, in the courts of justice, in parliaments and councils, that the God who made the heavens and the earth is the only true and living God, the author of Christianity, the author of all truth, who instituted the seventh-day Sabbath when the foundations of the world were laid, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted together for joy. All nature will bear testimony, as designed, for the illustration of the word of God."—"Fundamentals of Christian Educa­tion," PP. 374, 375.

Someday we "shall have won in the field of investigation" and research. Here is a chal­lenge for students of science. Perhaps the messenger of the Lord envisioned this when these words were written in "Early Writings :"

"At the commencement of the time of trouble, we were filled with the Holy Ghost as we went forth and proclaimed the Sabbath more fully."—Page 85.

Proclaiming the Sabbath more fully will demand all there is of us, and this calls for sanctified scholarship. Such scholarship gives authority to the message.

A sermon, however, is more than a lecture about God. The evangelist speaks for God, and he must not simply possess the message_; he must be possessed by the message. Henry Ward Beecher once said, "A preacher is in some degree a reproduction of the truth in personal form." The message possessing the man makes him dynamic. The man thus made and molded is a preacher, and his message is a sermon. Peter was possessed by a message, and the fisherman turned into the Pentecost preacher. Only as we are possessed of the Spirit of God can we speak with prophetic authority. "When a man vanishes in the virtue of the Almighty," says Breed, "then are wrought the miracles of true eloquence which mold men's minds."