RAYMOND H. LIBBY
Pastor-Evangelist, Northern California Conference
A delivery truck stopped in front of a store the other day, and the driver climbed out of the cab to carry some packages from the rear of the truck into the store. One by one he carried them in, but as he lifted the last one, a strange look came into his eyes and he called out to the store owner, "Mister, this package feels so light I think they've shipped you an empty." And sure enough, they had. When the package was opened, it was found to be empty. Someone had gone to all the trouble to wrap and address it and pay the freight on it, but he hadn't put anything inside.
As I was sitting in the speaker's chair behind the pulpit one Sabbath morning while the announcements were being made, I fell to thinking about those hundreds of faces down there in the pews facing me. There were all those people sitting in my church, and I was soon to deliver a sermon to them. They would sit there and receive my well-wrapped-up message. But by and by they would go home and begin to try to find out what I had said that would do them some good. Perhaps they would rethink my words in part, looking for something they could grasp that would be food for their souls and inspiration to their troubled hearts. Would they open the package I had delivered only to find my words empty and meaningless? Would they discover that I was like the packer who forgot to put anything in the package? Was my sermon just another "empty"?
Empty or Half-filled
A pithy sentence caught my eye a while back: "Many a train of thought is just a string of empties." Could that be true of my sermons?
A large gathering of young people sat before the pulpit in a large auditorium, waiting for the guest speaker, who had flown hundreds of miles to address them. Finally he appeared, and after the usual preliminaries he stood before them to speak. Every eye strained across the distance to see his face, while the loud-speakers carried his stentorian voice to every nook and corner of that massive structure. I looked and listened and waited. For twenty minutes he mouthed huge words about psychological problems of the day and the intellectual trends of this scientific age. His language was profound; as the old Missouri lay preacher said, "His fodder was hung high too high for the sheep to reach." My heart sank as I tried to penetrate what he was effervescing, and months later I still do not know. Thousands of young people had gathered from an area two hundred miles in diameter to hear and to be fed. Twenty minutes were lost. Finally and I'm so glad it happened he ran out of big words and thunderous phrases, and his feet touched the ground again. We began to walk beside him and to think with him. His Bible came into play, the word of life shone forth, and God found His way to our hearts with a stirring appeal. And I was happy for it. But those twenty lost minutes'. That sermon package was only half-Sited. What if it had been full to the covers?
They came into my church, discouraged and ready to give up. But I had no way of knowing this. I could not see the battle that raged in their hearts. I was too far from them to catch the heart hunger in their eyes. They had come for help in time of need, for courage and strength to lift them to their feet and put them on their forward march again. And I didn't know. I had to put over a campaign that day, and when I got up to preach there were only fifteen minutes left. But you see, I didn't know. And they haven't been back to church since. I'm afraid they decided the package was so light it could have nothing in it for them, at least.
Oh, these sermon packages of ours! What is in them? Are we preachers the last ones to dis cover that we forgot to put anything in them before delivery? I wonder about mine.
Somewhere I've heard, and I'm sure it's true experience proves it for me that sermons aren't composed of texts alone, though most of them have too few texts these days (they are getting too modern for that). Sermons are made up of what the preacher is in his own experience. Some have the gift of oratory, and that is too often all the people get from them. Others are scholarly, and the congregation gets a marvelous statement of doctrine with the keenest of logic to support it. Other preachers, perhaps, lack much of both. But wait He spoke in my church. He wasn't very pro found. He didn't have too fluent a style either. But out of his warm heart there came the simple tale of what God had done for him and through his humble service. I couldn't see the congregation, for there were too many tears in my eyes. But I did see Jesus, and how my own heart warmed! I don't think the audience could see me either, for the same reason I didn't see them. And I'm sure they saw Jesus too. That humble preacher delivered a sermon package weighty with the Spirit of God, and we all were fed. What a warmth came into those cold hearts! What courage lighted up their sin-weary faces! What peace flowed through that congregation of needy, hungry souls! That kind of preaching would bring a Pentecost if more of us would discover how to do it.
What was the key to the problem that set me thinking that Sabbath morning, while I sat in the speaker's chair, awaiting my time to preach? The key to a powerful sermon isn't always in the subject, or even perhaps in the texts. All that helps. But the preacher who goes on his knees often enough that he begins to know his God as a personal experience that man will feed the hungry with the bread of life, for he has found the prime principle in sermon making. Put that personal acquaintance along with Bible study, and then humbly add whatever talents God has given for its delivery. Brother preacher, the congregation will take home a weighty package from your pulpit!
The "More Sure" Foundation
ERIK ARNESEN, Retired Minister, West Nordic Union Conference
It has often been said that we, as Seventh-day Adventists, are a people of prophecy. And so we are. Seventh-day Adventists are a product of God's dealings as revealed through the prophetic word. In Him, prophecy is our foundation.
Is this foundation sure? Is it firm, and may we safely rely upon it? Do we need something to bolster it up, something to support it, in order to feel sure that it may not collapse?
Bible prophecy is the very certainty of the eternal and changeless One, expressed in stated terms. It is the eternal Rock spelled in human language. It is the foreknowledge of eternal Wisdom transformed into words that humanity may understand. Thus, being an expression of Him who is "the Rock" (Deut. 32:4), prophecy is, in and of itself, a sure foundation, entirely independent of any outside proof or support whatsoever.
But, someone may ask, is not prophecy proved and supported by history? Does not history make evident the truthfulness of Bible predictions? And if so, is it not in historical events that we find the true proof of the sureness of prophecy?
This, to me, is the natural questionings of the human mind, not the reasoning of Bible faith. True faith in God's word does not ask for, and does not depend on, proof in regard to that word, be it prophecy or promise. It takes the word itself as final and decisive evidence. It is true that proof and evidence may, and will, in some cases at least, help to bridge our faith, which is often so woefully feeble, over to the side of stronger faith. It may be a means of remedying our unbelief. But let it be remembered that living Christian faith is not in any sense dependent on that sort of evidence in order to consider the Lord's predictions or promises as being "more sure" than they are without such evidence. And all the proofs that man may be able to produce or muster cannot add one whit to the intrinsic sureness of divine prophecy or promise; nor can they in any way detract one particle from the fact that the word has its certainty in it self, even without demonstrable proof. (Promise and prophecy are subjoined, because in reality every promise is a prophecy, foretelling some thing that will come to pass, something that God will do. We have to accept both of them on the same terms: faith and trust in the sacred utterances of God, independent of demonstrated or demonstrable evidences.)
This, however, is not saying that historical evidences, for instance, may not serve to verify our conviction of the certainty of prophecy. They really do, transforming our conviction into facts of cognizance or experience. But notice, they do not help to make the word of prophecy as such any more sure than it was before we ever obtained that experimental conviction.
As Solid Rock
This is a most important point. We all have to accept, and fully believe, some divine utterances that are incapable of proof or demonstrable evidence. For example, God has promised, or foretold, that sins confessed and repented of will be forgiven. This prophetic word we simply have to accept by faith, without any demonstrable proof other than the feeling of joy and peace and gratitude that we may experience in taking God at His word of promise. But that joy and peace we experience only after accepting the promise as a "sure word." The word is equally sure even without any proof.
To illustrate: A contractor is to build a large and heavy edifice. A very firm foundation is o£ vital importance. The building must stand on solid rock. The contractor digs down in search of such a foundation. And when he comes to the rock he makes a most thorough investigation in order to assure himself as to its solidity. By various tests he satisfies himself that the rock is reliable. He finds it a sure foundation on which he may safely build. The facts he gathers convince him of this. But notice again: All his experiments and accumulated proofs do not make the rock one trifle more sure than it was before he ever knew of its existence. The rocky foundation was intrinsically firm. Added investigations may convince him more and more of its dependability. His conviction will grow stronger and stronger. But the rock remains the same. Surety is an inherent quality of the rock, independent of the con tractor's investigations.
Such is the word of prophecy. No kind or amount of proof or demonstration can make it more dependable than it is and has ever been since it first originated in the mind of God, or since it was made known to men. All divine prophecy is accomplished reality in the mind and plan of the Omniscient and Omnipotent One, and will in due time become demonstrable fact. In this sense God considers the things that are not as though they were. No created being can by the exercise or experience of his senses, be it sight or hearing or feeling, add one iota to the surety of God's word of prophecy or promise. The only thing that we may obtain through the experience of our senses is the establishment of our own conviction in the case. But that is an altogether different matter, and has nothing to do with the surety of prophecy as such. God's word of prophecy is immeasurably more trustworthy than even what we may see with our eyes or hear with our ears. Our senses may deceive us. The God-inspired prophetic word is the most reliable thing in the world. It cannot fail.
A Lesson We Must Learn
And this is a lesson that the people of the remnant church will have to learn before their journey on earth is finally finished. Those who do not learn that lesson will be in danger of being deceived by visible signs and tangible wonders performed by the powers of darkness in the closing scenes of the very last days. They will live to see fire actually come down from the sky, and witness the most remarkable miracles of healing, even the raising of the dead, we are told. They may listen to what will be considered the most stirring gospel sermons by powerful preachers who captivate the senses and feelings of multitudes upon multitudes of men, all performed through the spirit of the great rebel.
What will the professed commandment-keeping people of God do in the sweeping temptations of that fearful hour? The true ones will cling firmly to the literal word of God, not being disturbed by any wind that may blow, and refusing to accept as genuine some things that their eyes may behold and their ears may hear. They will refuse to believe the evidences of their own senses. They know the word of God, and ignore all else, even the boldest facts of sight and hearing.
That which in a special way characterized the personal faith of our Saviour while on earth was His implicit and unswerving faith in Holy Scripture, and especially the prophecies. This He made evident all along the way through His earthly life. The sure word of prophecy was His argument whenever He made reference to Himself and His mission. The word of God, naked and bare, was all-sufficient to Him. Never do we find that He called for any other proof or presented any other proof to convince His hearers, whether friend or foe. "The scriptures must be fulfilled," He declared. Nothing could prevent this fulfilling. The word was "sure" to come to pass. No further proof was necessary. The word itself included all needed evidence.
Do we have such a personal faith as Christ had? The question is not amiss, even to those among us who may have grown old in the blessed Advent message. The "more sure word of prophecy," independent of any formal proof outside of the word itself, will be the only safe foundation upon which to stand in the day of final issue.
