Are Seventh-day Adventists just innovators with newfangled ideas and perverted and erroneous doctrines? Many in other denominations sadly misunderstand the true character of Seventh-day Adventist evangelism. They claim that our teachings date back to 1844. Again they are most blatant in branding us as "legalists," asserting that our teachings do despite to grace. This leads them to the conclusion that our entire program of evangelism is just proselyting and "sheepstealing."
As we face this situation in our evangelism, we need to study how to plan our preaching so as to help eliminate these wrong concepts and prepare the way for a favorable hearing for our message and wider acceptance of it. Where shall we turn for this needed guidance? It can be found within the special message that God calls us to preach.
Seventh-day Adventist evangelism has much in common with the evangelism of the evangelicals of various denominations. There are certain features of Adventist evangelism, however, that make us different from other religious groups. The distinctive feature of our evangelism is our mission to preach the threefold message of Revelation 14. "The message of Revelation 14 is the message that we are to bear to the world. It-is the bread of life for these last days." Testimonies, vol. 8, p. 27. "The third angel's message must be presented as the only hope for the salvation of a perishing world." Evangelism, p. 196. "The theme of greatest importance is the third angel's message, embracing the messages of the first and second angels." Ibid.
Adventist evangelism based on the three angels' messages is our evangelistic charter. We owe our existence to this threefold prophecy. This is the justification for Seventh-day Adventists' being a separate religious group. It ex plains the true reason for our evangelism. Our preaching our work is fulfilling Revelation 14:6-12.
Since the threefold message is the distinctive basis of Adventist evangelism, the questions naturally arise, What does it mean to preach the third angel's message? What does this mes sage include? What relation does it sustain to the gospel? The preaching of the third angel's message is not confined to its exact wording as used by the three angels. Neither is it limited necessarily to the specific items mentioned in the threefold message. It does include, however, the presentation of all the saving truths of the gospel. We are told in Testimonies, volume 6, page 11, that "A great work is to be accomplished in setting before men the saving truths of the gospel. . . . To present these truths is the work of the third angel's message."
Again, the third angel's message includes more than the preaching of Christ and His righteousness, His cross, His blood, His grace, and His love. These items are supremely important, and must be central and basic in all true preaching. But if the third angel's message is to be confined to these features, then the message of the third angel was also given by the apostles and has been given by God's true ministers in every generation since their day. This cannot be the case, because the third angel's message applies only to the closing age, between the beginning of the judgment in 1844 and the return of Christ at the last day. It is significant that the threefold message is introduced as the everlasting gospel, which is to be preached unto every nation. John says, "I saw another angel . . . having the everlasting gospel to preach unto . . . every nation, . . . saying . . . , Fear God, . . . for the hour of his judgment is come" (Rev. 14:6, 7). This makes it plain that this threefold message is the everlasting gospel in the setting of the judgment hour.
Noah preached repentance and righteousness by faith. So did John the Baptist, Jesus, the apostles, Luther, and Wesley. But each preached in the appropriate setting for his day. So Adventists are preaching repentance and righteousness by faith in the God-appointed setting for these last days, as specified in the three an gels' messages.
Objectives of Our Preaching
God has marked out in His Word four leading objectives, which will be accomplished by the preaching of the threefold message. (1) It will call out a people in every nation, who will keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. (2) It will restore the faith of Jesus among God's people. (3) It will gather out God's scattered sheep (Eze. 34:11, 12; Rev. 18:4) and unite them as His remnant in this closing age (Rev. 12:17). (4) It will make ready a people for the Lord at His second coming, as the message of John the Baptist made ready a people for the Lord at His first advent. These are the objectives of Adventist evangelism, under this threefold message.
Christ and His righteousness have been the heart and center of every revelation that God has ever made. So Christ and His righteousness are the center and heart of the third angel's message. This is why Mrs. White refers to justification by faith as "the third angel's message in verity" (Evangelism, p. 190).
The threefold message, being God's last mes sage, will reveal Christ and His righteousness to a fuller degree than they have ever been known before. In speaking of righteousness by faith in connection with the third angel's message, Mrs. White said: "This message was to bring more prominently be fore the world the uplifted Saviour, the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. It presented justification through faith in the Surety; it invited the peo ple to receive the righteousness of Christ, which is made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God. . . . This is the message that God commanded to be given to the world. It is the third angel's message, which is to be proclaimed with a loud voice, and attended with the outpouring of His Spirit in a large measure." Ibid., pp. 190, 191. (Italics supplied.)
Make This Message Prominent
Some of our evangelists do not mention the threefold message in their preaching until the latter part of the campaign. Since our task is to preach the everlasting gospel in the setting of the three angels' messages, and this is the distinctive feature of Adventist evangelism, why should not this message be brought to the fore front in the beginning of the campaign?
It is well to tie in the conclusion of the first sermon of the campaign, or of one of the very early sermons, with the three angels' messages, and show briefly that this is the message that God has appointed to be preached at this very time as the true remedy for all earth's troubles. We should mention that this threefold message is something that God wants every soul to hear and understand and heed; and that the purpose of this series of meetings is to discover from God's own Book the meaning of this mes sage.
Then in each succeeding sermon, little by little and step by step, the extent, the design, the implications, the meaning, and the appeal of the threefold message should be set forth. We have emphasized the warning side of the message, but have failed to hold up sufficiently the glory side of the message, how it is destined to bring the glorious triumph of the gospel, how it is destined to enlighten the world with the glory of God, how it will bring a revelation of Christ and His righteousness to a fuller extent than has ever been known.
Some religionists have endeavored to divorce obedience to the Decalogue from the acceptance of Christ and His grace. On the other hand, Adventist evangelism has often omitted Christ and His righteousness in the presentation of the law. Our task is to give the proper balance between Jesus and the law; the relationship of grace, the cross, and the blood, and obedience to the commandments (Rev. 14:12). The sermons for a series of evangelistic meetings should be more than a list of lectures upon a variety of Bible doctrines. They should be a connected, progressive, step-by-step unfolding of the message of Revelation 14. "Not good if detached" should be one of the rules for Adventist evangelistic sermons. All the themes used from the beginning to the end should be tied in with God's special message. When this is done, we are helping the hearers to sense the "pull" of a divine message from the opening sermon, and as the meetings proceed this "pull" becomes stronger and stronger in their hearts, until they gladly yield to God in full surrender, to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
Advantages of This Plan
This threefold message is the source of our distinctive advantages in evangelism, and we ought to make the most of these by approaching the public from the angle of this message and make it the undergirding of all our preaching. We should use it to reinforce our appeals as the steel rods reinforce the concrete. Some of these advantages are:
1. When the threefold message is presented in its true setting, it will help to eliminate wrong concepts of Adventist evangelism, and will enable the hearers to see Adventist teach ing in its true, Christ-centered perspective. Those who listen will recognize that we are not innovators in religion, who have added new fangled, erroneous doctrines to the gospel, but that we are preaching the one true gospel of Christ, as it has come down from the beginning, in the correct setting for this closing age. They will be led to contemplate the Adventist faith, not merely as reaching back to 1844, but rather as the continuation for our day of the original faith and religion that Jesus founded when He was here on earth. They will perceive that we are not legalists, but that Christ and His righteousness are the center of every doctrine we teach, and that the cross, the blood, the grace, and the love of Christ permeate all our teach ings. They will recognize that Adventists have all the truths of the gospel that other churches have, plus the special light for this day. Thus they will see that we are offering them some thing better than what they can find anywhere else, and they will want it. This is the way Jesus won the woman of Samaria. We should follow His methods.
2. It helps to lift Adventism above the narrow limits of denominationalism, and gives us the broad approach of God's universal, inter denominational message. Denominational prejudices, as against Ad ventists and in favor of another church, are one of the main barriers against a fair hearing and investigation of present truth. Revelation 14:6 shows that this threefold message is for every people. God addresses it to the members of all churches and religions, and to those who have no religious affiliation. This helps to relegate denominational rivalries to the background and gives us a clear common ground on which to meet other denominations. Having a message from God for all people, we are to extend the help of the heaven-sent message to all and gather Jesus' scattered sheep into His remnant.
3. It helps to place an unusual value and importance upon our evangelistic meetings, and gives them a priority in the field of evangelism. No other people are attempting to preach this threefold message to the people of every nation. This at once marks our meetings as different from any ordinary revival, or from any other evangelistic meetings, and is of itself a drawing factor for securing a regular attendance. People today are looking for a man who has a heaven-sent message of hope, certainty, and security for this troubled hour. Through the mes sage approach the hearers are led to see that we are not here merely to lecture on a variety of apparently detached Biblical subjects, but that the proposed addresses are to be a step-by step unfolding of the message of Revelation 14:6-12, which God has appointed for this hour. When the people see this they will put forth special effort to come and hear every presentation in the campaign.
4. It enables us to capitalize on the prophetic basis of our teaching and movement. People are troubled about the meaning and outcome of the unprecedented happenings of our day. The answer to their inquiries can be found only in the prophetic messages. The mes sage approach on these matters will arouse, build, and hold interest.
5. It will help the hearers in making their decision to become Seventh-day Adventists, and especially in making that decision more promptly. This prophecy of the three angels' messages in Revelation 14:6-12 indicates that, beginning with the arrival of the judgment hour in 1844, a God-ordained movement would arise, by which this threefold message will be preached to every nation. So in determining what religious faith to espouse there is really only one question to settle: Is the Seventh-day Adventist Church this God-ordained movement of Revelation 14:6-12? Everything turns on this pivotal point. By introducing this threefold message in the conclusion of the opening address of the campaign, or better still, perhaps, by devoting one sermon in the early part of the series to the place, position, and relation of this prophecy of Revelation 14:6-12 in God's gospel plan, the 2300 days and the 1844 date and the judgment can be presented in succeeding sermons, even before the Sabbath truth is introduced. Thus the hearers can be led to see for themselves, early in the series, that the Advent Movement is this God-ordained movement that was due to come in the closing age for the consummation of the work of the gospel. This helps them to decide quickly to take their stand with us. If this Advent Movement is the fulfillment of Revelation 14:6-12, then the only consistent. It offers a sound, solid, satisfactory basis for such a decision. When the people are convinced that the preaching is God's message for this hour, that becomes a powerful incentive for immediate, favorable, and enduring decision.
6. It gives us the advantage of making the matter of uniting with the Adventist Church not merely a matter of joining another church but a matter of the individual's acceptance of God's message.
Christ revealed one of the most powerful decision principles in a decisive question that He put to the chief priests and elders regarding the divine authenticity of the message of John the Baptist. "The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven, or of men?" (Matt. 21:25). They recognized that if they admitted that John's message was from heaven, the only consistent course they could have chosen would have been to accept it. So when we present our teachings in the evangelistic campaign as being God's message for these last days, as set forth in the whole Bible but concentrated in Revelation 14:6-12, then people will be convinced that the only wise course, the only safe way, the only right choice, is to accept God's message and join His remnant people. If we so plan the preaching that people will be committed to the idea that the teachings constitute God's last message, and if they are true to God and honest with them selves, what else can they do but obey the call of God to come out and unite with His remnant? Our evangelism has a broader basis than asking Christians to leave their other churches and join the Adventists. We must so present the threefold message that uniting with the Adventist Church is the natural result of a per son's acceptance of God's message for today.
When we cause them to see that under the three fold message the call of God for this hour is for people to "keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus," and that God is calling into His remnant church those who make this decision, then the call of God leads them into the Adventist Church. Their decision to accept God's message carries with it coming into God's remnant church. Thus our appeal to the people is to accept God's message and to respond to His call.
In Unity Is Strength
RUSSELL H. ARGENT Takoma Park, Maryland
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is made up of men and women from many lands, with different national customs and traditions and varied backgrounds, yet united in the firm conviction of the Second Advent of Jesus. It is the cosmopolitan nature of the Advent Movement which makes it so rich and diverse in talents and resources.
Since its inception the international character of the church has figured largely in the work and literature of Seventh-day Adventists. We speak of a "worldwide movement" symbolized by an angel who flies above the face of the whole world. We believe in a global mission, divinely ordained, to be completed before Jesus comes. Seventh-day Adventists are linked with mission ary endeavor in the remotest islands of the sea and the obscurest tribes of the hinterland.
The ministry of the Advent Movement must never give mere lip service to world brotherhood as an ideal. The church must reveal it to the world as a demonstrable fact, as unquestioned as the knowledge that Jesus came to make "of one blood all nations of men" (Acts 17:26).
The disease of nationalism, at least in its more virulent form, is of comparatively recent origin. It reared its ugly head, encouraged and stimulated by the governments of the world, during the nineteenth century. By the close of the century nationalism had become a fetish. Few were certain what the term meant or even where the divisions of the mingled races and peoples should be made. The masses were not concerned with polemics. Nationalism was taught them in the schools and screamed at them from the newspapers. They were not sure what it all meant, but they knew how to wave their flags vigorously and when to cheer in the right places. In the years that followed, the dragon's teeth of discord and hate that were planted produced their crop of armed men.
Today at every frontier there are barriers of suspicion and distrust. As late as the outbreak of the first world war it was still possible for people to move quite freely about the world without undue restrictions in the form of visas and sponsorships. It would seem that those days are past forever. At the present time a large section of the world's population is effectively cut off from contact with the outside world. A barrage of words, of charges and countercharges, is hurled across the world arena and there is scarcely a tribe or nation that has not felt a quickening of the national pulse. Nations have resurrected historic myths and, weaving subtle words around them, have dinned them into the ears of millions of children. The flames of pas sion and prejudice have been fanned by two world wars, while the jingoists continue to make merry, hurling their slogans and waving their banners.
Attitude of Adventists
The course of the remnant church in the last century has largely been storm-driven. It was never expected that it would be otherwise. A world seething in ferment was the picture every prophet indicated for the last days. But what effect will these conditions have upon the people of God, who, although they are not of the world, for the time being must remain in the world?
The realm of ideas is a large place. It is easy to get lost. We are all subject, to a certain ex tent, to the environment into which we were born, and all of us, for good or ill, absorb to some extent the propaganda current in our community. As Seventh-day Adventists, how ever, we must not let the dust of earthly opinion blind us. The idea of racial or national superiority is utterly alien to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Every "kindred, and tongue, and people" will be represented in the nation of the saved. Internationalism must always remain a unique feature of the Advent Movement.
The church is being built, brick upon brick, with material from many places, yet the entire structure is planned by a divine hand. It' can never bear the stamp or mold of nationality, for its origin is heavenly. The Advent pilgrimage is upon a path marked out by God.
Nationalism is the great enemy of Christianity, whose Founder taught that all men are brothers, regardless of race, color, or creed. Jesus was surrounded during His earthly ministry by nationalism prejudices. He was crucified because He did not fulfill the national aspirations of His countrymen. "My kingdom is not of this world" is a direct statement of truth, applicable today as in the Jewish world. All too many people attempt to make an image of God in their own national likeness. It has proved one of the greatest deterrents to the evangelization of the world. There is a Christian philosophy of history which must transcend human sentiment. We know that God uses the nations of the modern world, as they relate themselves to truth, to fulfill His plans; but when they turn toward darkness, His protecting hand is withdrawn. God has ordained no nation to fill the role of a chosen people since Israel failed His purpose.
Perhaps it is not without significance that when Daniel saw his vision of the nations, they were symbolized by wild beasts.
Many movements throughout the years have splintered on the rocks of chauvinism, when small ideas and petty plans held sway. The Advent minister must recognize, as did Wesley, that the world is his parish. The maxim "in unity is strength" has proved itself sound. Seventh-day Adventists must be able to say in deed and truth, "We be brethren." We must break down every barrier that would prevent the church from doing its appointed task. We must stand, one unbroken circle around the world, "linked by golden chains about the feet of God."
Evangelism: A Question of Method
JAMES S. STEW ART Professor of New Testament Language, Literature, and Theology, New College, Edinburgh
One finds it frequently assumed in conferences on evangelism and similar discussions that little or no reliance should now be placed on so-called "mass evangelism." This is a method, it is maintained, which, though doubtless achieving notable results in bygone days, is clearly ill-adapted to present needs. Men are increasingly distrustful of a technique that lends itself to emotional abuse, a technique the results of which are likely to be precarious and evanescent.
Moreover, there is a new emphasis on community responsibility in evangelism: what is wanted is not one man's voice but the witness of the group, and the real evangelizing unit is the congregation. To all this there must be added the growing awareness that any evangelism which is divorced from social passion is stultified and self-defeating; to preach the justice and the compassion of God requires a community that is itself on fire for social and economic justice and refuses to stand aloof from things which too many religious people have called common and unclean, a community manifestly taking up the cross of a costly compassion toward men. All this has tended to bring the older kind of evangelism under a cloud. And that there have been grave abuses goes without saying. But surely it is a mistake to be so afraid of possible abuse as to cast away altogether a powerful sword of the Spirit; and it is open to question whether much current debate on evangelism is not based upon a false antithesis. The real strategy here is not "either or"; it is "both and." Within recent years the supreme value of the "parish-visitation" type of evangelism has been amply demonstrated; the "teaching mission" has proved its worth; and the "commando campaign" in which missioners seek to carry their Christian witness into factories, shops, cinemas, dance halls, public houses, and street corners has had notable results. It is right to recognize this gratefully, and to believe that here is a crucial line of assault upon contemporary paganism and unbelief. But it is wrong to suppose that these more direct and intimate contacts necessarily outmode the large central gathering where night by night the Word is proclaimed. Indeed, there is no lack of proof that such meetings can gather up and focus to a point all the other diverse activities in which evangelism is finding its modern expression. In a sense, of course, the words "mass evangelism" are misleading. It might even be said that, strictly speaking, there is no such thing. This is a point that Canon Bryan Green has stressed in a recent excellent book. (The Practice of Evangelism, Hodder and Stoughton.) You can preach the gospel to the multitude, but in conversion the individual soul stands face to face with Christ. Hence the missioner who carries the kerygma for the multitude must also be furnished with the paraklesis and the didache for the individual in the time of the decisive encounter.
In the New Testament period itself all the recognized lines of attack on the problem of paganism were known and used. Already in the Acts of the Apostles the group or community emerges as the evangelizing unit. Already the Christian witness of the layman as he pursues his own daily calling is paramount. Already there appears the pattern of the industrial chap lain and the priest workman: did not Peter have a special mission to the fisherfolk and Paul to the tentmakers? Already "visitation evangelism" and the "mission of friendship" are familiar, and the message is carried "from house to house" (Acts 20:20). Already the kerygma leads on to the didache, and both are verified and substantiated in the koinonia. And through it all there can be seen from time to time the gathered crowd, that sight upon which our Lord Himself never looked without an immense compassion and a deep stirring of the heart.
Public Evangelism, Brings Results
It will not do to disparage the older method of evangelism on the ground that it fails to reach the outsider. Even if ninety per cent of those who attend are professing Christians, who shall say that the results are barren? Many a minister would testify that the turning point of his ministry or its sudden upreach to new self-dedication came through a mission con ducted in his own town or neighborhood by some man sent of God.
Where the way has been prepared and cooperation between the local churches is real, such an evangelist, passing on elsewhere when the fortnight's meetings were over, has left scores or hundreds of evangelists behind him. In any case, where the Christians of a community are awake to their responsibility, there is no doubt that during such a campaign many who have no connection with a church will be brought within the hearing of the Word. Even with specialized groups, such as students, the mass meeting still has its place, as has been shown convincingly in recent university missions in Britain, America, and Australia. From London to the Hebrides, from Melbourne to New York, new evidence is continually being provided that the special mission, when brought in not to substitute but to supplement the other methods of parochial or congregational evangelism, is still manifestly effective and mightily used by God. As to the danger of emotionalism, are we sure the pendulum has not been allowed to swing too far the other way, until the prevailing cult of the casual has left its mark even upon the declaration of the gospel?
By all means let war be declared in the name of Christ upon intellectual dishonesty, and let anything in the nature of a cheap emotionalism be banned, but it is a tragedy to jettison emotion as well. It is essential to put logic and hard thinking into the creed by which a man proposes to live, but it is a profound mistake to do this in such a way as to stifle the fire within.
The children of darkness are wiser here than the children of light, for the devil knows better than to stifle emotion. Only Spirit can cast out spirit; and nothing could be more futile or pathetic than the attempt to set a tepid Christianity over against a scorching pa ganism, a casual take-it-or-leave-it argument for faith against the almost mystic fervor and passion of the false ideologies that bestride the world today. In the book to which reference has already been made a book which all who have a concern for evangelism would do well to read and ponder the rector of Birmingham remarks on a significant change of attitude which the last twenty years have witnessed among both clergy and laity on the whole question of evangelism. Gone almost entirely are the suspicion and hostility once frequently encountered. "It is perhaps one of the most encouraging signs of the new life springing up within the churches.
Varying emphasis will be put upon varying methods; but men of all shades of churchmanship are largely agreed that if we are to advance we must evangelize, and by evangelism they mean so to present the Gospel that men do come to God through Christ by conversion." The Practice of Evangelism, p. 207.
In this presentation the churches will continue to develop fresh methods and to break new ground, but the time for the public proclamation of the saving facts will never pass away.
