In the Face of Great Obstacles

In discussing the nature of the Advent Movement I have stated that in my opinion the greatest difference between us and other fundamentalist religious bodies may, after all, not be discovered in the field of doctrinal teach­ings. I have attempted to give a reason for that opinion. I now make bold to express the convic­tion that the one thing that makes this move­ment strikingly unlike all other spiritual move­ments iS the unshakable conviction that as a people we have been raised up to take God's fully recovered truth to the entire world within a short space of time, because the hour has struck for God to finish His work and cut it short in righteousness. God purposes to settle the sin question now, and not in some future generation. This is God's vital hour.

Other Christian bodies have been content to offer God's salvation to lost mankind for many generations and see no urgency in this hour. As a denomination we, too, have been winning men and women to Christ for one hundred years. We could continue to do the same noble work indefinitely and still greatly displease God. Why? Simply because this movement was started to finish the work of God in all the world. We are to be the instruments in God's hand to cut His work short in this generation.

It is this conception of God's purpose for us as a movement, this conviction of our obliga­tion, that not only makes us different, but is at the same time the basis of much of the opposi­tion that we experience. We believe our mes­sage to be for all the world. That leads us to cut across lots. We cannot confine our activities to assigned territory. God's people are still in all the churches. They must hear the whole truth. The enemy will do his utmost to keep them from hearing the whole truth. This brings opposition.

I might say parenthetically that much de­pends on our methods of approach. If we would capture the interest of sinners and of God's sin­cere people in all communions, then we must establish our orthodoxy in the fundamentals of the Christian faith. To fail in this is to fail in everything. And in this most fundamental task we may have failed. I recall with considerable heartache an interview with one of America's leading Baptist evangelists. He mildly chided me with these words : "Brother Unruh, there is something about you Adventist brethren that I cannot understand. When it comes to the matter of salvation, with you it is always Christ plus something else." I pleaded for a fuller explana­tion, to which he responded, "For you Advent­ists to be accepted, you must believe in Christ and keep the law of God."

Having assured him that this was not our position, that we kept God's law because we were saved and not to be saved, that our obedi­ence stemmed out of a great love for Christ—"If ye love Me, keep My commandments"—he was more than amazed. I shall not soon forget his response: "If that is what you believe I can go with you. But the world does not know that this is your belief."

What a tragedy! Our orthodoxy in the fun­damentals is unquestioned as far as we are con­cerned, but our methods of labor may well be a stumbling block to others. Our failure to meet the people of other denominations on common ground may have been a hindering cause. We would do well to examine critically our methods of advertising in our public campaigns. Possi­bly we should come to depend more fully on the intervention and miracle-working power of the Holy Spirit and less on human ingenuity. We should seek to be wise but not clever. Any method that smacks of deception merits God's frown and the disgust of the public. In religious work downright honesty and sincerity is basic. We must make no promises we cannot fulfill. To do so is to suffer irreparable loss.

The individual, the church, the conference, that really believes this to be earth's final hour, and that it has been given us to prepare, and to help lost mankind to prepare to meet God, will be greatly affected by such a belief. It will produce greater purity of life. For he "that bath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure." This belief will result in great earnest­ness in service. It will lead to almost unbeliev­able sacrifices to make the salvation of a lost world possible before God rings down the cur­tain on earth's history.

Yes, to this movement has been assigned the task of finishing God's work. It is a most sol­emn thought to me, in spite of the fact that I cannot understand it all, that it rests with God's remnant people to determine whether the trag­edy of sin is to be prolonged or cut short in righteousness and thus climaxed. That we might have been in the kingdom ere this if we had done our appointed work is the message sent to this people by the Lord. This being true, I can but exclaim, "What loss we have sustained, what sorrow, what suffering, what heartache have been prolonged because of the neglect of Those called to finish the work!"

Few things to me seem more pathetic than the tragedy of arrested development. What a tragedy when a child, either through accident or disease, fails to reach maturity, and dis­charge those functions for which it was born. Yet, pathetic as is arrested development in the realm of the physical, in the realm of the spirit­ual it is even more tragic. And yet every great spiritual movement up to our own has had the experience. Let me illustrate : Christ started His church and sent it into the world to con­quer the human family for God. But the objec­tives were lost sight of, complacency set in, and the great apostasy developed. What a pic­ture we find in the book of Revelation. The Lamb opens the seals and the experience of the church is revealed. A white horse with an armed and crowned rider goes forth to con­quer. But the white horse gives way to the red, and the red to the black, and the black to the pale horse, whose rider is named death and hell, and whose mission is to destroy the earth. Thus did the early church suffer the tragedy of an arrested development.

God, however, having made His work on earth dependent upon the co-operation of the men He redeems, knows no permanent defeat of His plans. A Luther, fearless and unafraid, discovers His God and strikes at the heart of the apostasy of which he himself was the prod­uct, and the great Reformation is born. Fully indeed did God plan that the reformation thus born should, through the recovery of all truth, restore the glory and the conquering power of the early church and set about once more to capture a lost world.

But again, the tragedy of an arrested devel­opment. The followers of this mighty man of God, content with the truth he had recovered, settled down and called themselves by his name. And so god raised up a Zwingli, a Cal­vin, a Knox, a Wesley, and others with the di­vine purpose that each should add to the re­covered truth of those who had preceded them, and thereby raise up a single body of believers to whom the truth would be as a shining light that would shine more and more unto the per­fect day: But again and again the tragedy of arrested development mars God's plans. And in the place of a single and powerful church, armed with the whole truth, we find Lutherans, Zwinglians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Bap­tists and others, each clinging to the portions of truth recovered by their leaders.

And what of the Advent Movement? There might never have been a necessity for it had not Protestantism developed into a house di­vided against itself. The Advent Movement is God's final attempt to give to the world the whole truth, that the honest in heart every­where might find it and walk therein. That is why we must carry the message of mercy to all the world before God rings down the curtain on a rapidly passing generation.

I now raise a serious question. What is to be the experience of the Advent Movement? To what degree or in what respect are we in dan­ger of suffering the tragedy of an arrested de­velopment?

The dangers are great. The dragon is wroth with the church and has gone forth to make war with the remnant of her seed. That is the warning of the prophetic word. Our statistical reports reveal trends that are disconcerting. Adventism has come to maturity. We are now a hundred years old. We have become institu­tionalized, and we are well supported. We can take pride in the unshakable foundations upon which our faith is built.

I think we may truthfully say that all the fundamental truths have been recovered, and that the light of that truth is focused upon our generation. Not that every aspect of truth is now in our possession. Decidedly not. As we reverently study God's Book, new aspects of old truths will be discovered. The Sabbath is to be preached more fully. The implications of the atonement will be more fully understood and experienced. The righteousness of Christ and its possession by faith is now to many a meaningless set of phrases. It is to become a great experience.

Adventism at the Crossroads

I do not believe that our greatest dahger is that we shall refuse to accept any fuller devel­opment of truth that is sure to come to us. And yet I am constrained to believe that, like every other spiritual movement, we have come to our own crossroads and that two distinct paths are open before us. These paths are plainly marked. There is no mistaking them.

The one—"BEHOLD, I COME QUICKLY." The other—"MY LORD DELAYETH HIS COMING."

This much is certain. The message will in­crease its gripping power, and the movement will expand its conquests if we take the first of these roads. If we take the other, the message—no matter how complete and beautiful—will lose its virility, and the movement will halt be­fore the smallest obstacles. The success of the Advent Movement will not be determined by the development of some new doctrine. The foundations of the movement have been se­curely laid. The enemies of truth have attacked that foundation in vain. Our destiny will be set­tled by our attitude toward the divinely deter­mined objectives of this movement—the finish­ing of the work now! Abandon that objective in thought or in planning, and this movement suffers the tragedy of an arrested development, and we settle down to the existence of other great denominations. It was in his heart that the servant said, "My Lord delayeth His com­ing," and with what tragic results.

To settle the question theoretically is one thing. To organize for the finishing of the work in all the world and to accomplish the task is quite another. We must be exceedingly realis­tic. The finishing of God's work is no child's play. It is a job that will require the strength and energy of all God's people, and all their re­sources, and ours as leaders. Think of the all-out program to win the last war. Think of its cost in suffering, in toil, in blood, in gold. Then let no one think that conquering a world for Christ will require less effort or sacrifice. It was as early as 1874 that the messenger of the Lord delivered to this people this warning:

"You are entertaining too limited ideas of the work for this time. You are trying to plan the work so you can embrace it in your arms. You must take broader views. . .

"Your conception of the work needs to be greatly enlarged. . . . God will work with great power if you will walk in all humility of mind before Him. It is not faith to talk of impossibilities."—Life Sketches, pp. 208, 209.

I now ask very seriously, Does God have a divine program for the finishing of the work? He most assuredly does ! It is so plain, so sim­ple, and so clear. No special commissions are needed to determine what that program is. God Himself, through His chosen messenger, has outlined it for us. Here are the essential fea­tures of God's program:

I. EVERY CHRISTIAN WORKING FOR CHRIST: "The work of God in this earth can never be finished until the men and women comprising our church member­ship rally to the work, and unite their efforts with those of ministers and church officers."—Gospel Work­ers, p. 352.

This is impressive language. It is decisive. Without this feature of the program in operation a finished work is impossible. This, then, becomes a matter of serious concern to the lead­ership of this denomination. That the rank and file of our church membership should be or­ganized and trained for personal service is un­deniably the will of God. Hundreds and thou­sands were seen going from house to house with their Bibles under their arms. That for such service they need instruction is self-evi­dent. But more than organization and training we need motivation. We have organization, methods, and plans in superabundance. But power, driving force, is lacking. This cannot be found in regimentation. Unfortunately, that is the direction in which we are inclined to move more and more. The source of motivation and power is divine, not human.

What a picture of church activity we have in the book of Acts ! A church, deeply in love with the crucified and risen Christ, sensing the obli­gation to make Him known, is scattered through persecution—they "went every where preaching the word." Here is the source of our hope. More basic than method is conversion; more needed than plans is revival. All our arti­ficial inducements to service are destined to be disappointing. Rewards ultimately grow stale. For the task God has given us to do something else is needed. Plant in a human heart a deep love for Christ, and fortify that heart with the assurance of His soon return, and then service will be assured. "The love of Christ constrain­eth us" is the way Paul puts it.

Our duty is perfectly clear. A "revival of true godliness" is the greatest of all our needs—not some new plan or method of labor. To what end is the imposing of some new activity when the power and the will to serve are absent. The passing of resolutions on methods of service can become a pleasant, but a dangerous, pastime. A spiritual revival is the great need of the church today. So, then, God's program for the finish­ing of the work calls for a spiritually alert church membership, actively witnessing for Christ. We now turn to another feature of God's pattern program.

2. A GREATLY EXPANDED WORKING FORCE: "Time is short. Workers for Christ are needed everywhere. There should be a hundred earnest, faithful laborers in home and foreign mission fields where now there is but one."—Testimonies, vol. 8, p. 229.

I suppose this is figurative language. What­ever else is indicated by this statement, it surely calls for an ever-increasing number of workers as the movement pushes its way into every cor­ner of the world. It was in the plan and purpose of God that the work started so humbly should move forward and fan out until it would cover the earth. And this expansion of God's work—if it is ever to be finished—must go forward irrespective of the conditions that confront us in the world. As a matter of fact, since we have failed to do in times of peace and prosperity the work assigned to us, the expansion of God's work must take place when the world faces a great crisis. God's program makes no provision for retrenchment.

Lest I should be misunderstood by what I am about to say, let me hasten to assure you that I fervently believe that workers for God are worthy of their hire. It is a conviction with me that men and women who devote their full time to God's service are entitled to sufficient remu­neration so that the needs of life can be cared for without undue anxiety. Economies can be practiced that need not affect the wages of workers. But when I have said all this I must confess that I am confused and perplexed by the talk of laying off workers in order that those that remain may receive higher wages.

God's blueprint for the finishing of the work makes no provision for retrenchment in times of adversity-and we are facing an economic crisis. That is the hour for a display of the real spirit of sacrifice. That is what we talk to our people. As leaders may God grant us the grace to take the lead. In this Autumn Council we have been confronted by our world leader, Elder McElhany, with the challenge to give ourselves in utter abandon to Christ for the fin­ishing of the work. We have responded to that call. We have had placed before us a pattern of evangelism that might well mark the begin­nings of a finished work. Think of the disap­pointment that will come to the thousands of youth-fresh from a soul-transforming Youth's Congress, now crowding our colleges, eager for a place in God's work-when they hear that conferences are dismissing workers in order better to support those that remain. And that is precisely what many conferences will have to do when we return from this meeting, unless the spirit of Christlike sacrifice is manifested. I repeat, retrenchment is not in God's blue­print for the finishing of His work.