Our Rendezvous With Destiny

Commencement address given at the twenty-third com­mencement of the Theological Seminary, May 17, 1955.

J. A. BUCKWALTER, General Conference Field Secretary

It is fitting that on this occasion we take our in­spiration from the Word of God, for the Bible is full of contemporary meaning for the world of today. Moreover, this Seminary is dedicated to the highest of all education—that education that is consecrated to the will and the revelation of God, to the end that the graduates who leave these halls of learning may go forth better able to intelli­gently convey to the minds of men the dy­namic message of the mind of God to this generation.

Underlying our meditations are the words of Christ as recorded in the Syriac translation of Revelation 22:13: "I am . . . the commencement and the completion." The world has commenced a number of plans and programs that will never be completed, because God was left out of their reckoning. Only Christ can make eternal greatness incarnate in the passage of time and in the lives of mortal men. Never be­fore has the world needed so much the powerful witnessing of men and women in whose lives Jesus Christ is "the commence­ment and the completion" of all their liv­ing and of all their doing.

Significantly, both the commencement and the completion of God's work of re­demption through the instrumentality of His church are marked by periods of re­vival and reformation. Tremendous impli­cations are found in these words of proph­ecy that portray earth's last reformation: "I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory" (Rev. 18:1).

What dynamic words are these! Herein lies our rendezvous with destiny! Christen­dom's revival hour has struck. The last reformation is now due. This is indeed the Adventist Hour of History, which is to pre­pare the world for the Second Advent of Christ. We must no longer delay in the preparation of our own hearts and the hearts of our people in order that we may be the messengers of the new reformation. Time's greatest urgency is upon us, for the longer we withhold it, the longer we pro­long the martyrdom of man.

These Times and Our Message

The climacteric events of this age are not an argument against our faith, but a plea for it. What fearful paradoxes are these: that our generation should be so progressive and yet so retrogressive, so scientific and yet so hypothetical, so com­munal and yet so hateful, so statutory and yet so lawless, so democratic and yet so dictatorial, so civilized and yet so bar­barous, so Christianized and yet so de­monized! Only a great cosmic battle be­tween the Prince of light and the prince of darkness, fighting in the war for the control of men's souls and to determine the destiny of the human race, can account for such contradictions as these!

These times and our message were made for each other. What we have is for the world. We are a people of destiny, not because of who we are but because of what we have—the everlasting gospel in its last-day setting of the three angels' messages of Revelation 14.

Our message is the only message that clarifies the tremendous issues confronting modern civilization in global impact. It alone meets the universal needs of the whole human race. It is the only message that prepares men and women to stand in this judgment hour of history. It is the only message free from secular and ecclesiastical sin—compromising philosophies of this sin-saturated age. It is the only international call to men to worship the Creator of heaven and earth. It is the only truly inter­denominational message through which God speaks to modern Christendom.

A writer in Christian Century, May 24, 1939, penned these words: "What you have all along been seeking is . . . what the religious man calls the 'True Church' and that is indeed the crucial question of our day."—Page 668. Destiny is paging us for the global answer to this "crucial question of our day," for the very objective of our message is to guide the faithful remnant of all faiths out of confusion into God's rem­nant faith.

And the time is now. As Sir Winston Churchill so aptly put it at the time of a recent visit to Washington, "Never in the world before have there been such reasons for men to consider their fate."

And what a needy world it is! And what a needy church! Reversion instead of con­version has become the commonplace in this bomb-blasted, ideologically riven, quiv­ering world. History has gone berserk—brutal, barbarian, demonic, destructive. The twentieth century has already ex­ploded twice and is moving rapidly toward that flaming finale spoken of by the apostle Peter. In the midst of all the horrifying human problems of our day, the world waits for the messengers of the new refor­mation.

A paralyzing uncertainty and confusion has gripped all races in this judgment hour of history, and oppression attempts a new submergence of man. Truly, "Subversive elements are leaving no brick unflung, and watery intellectuals no phrase unstrung" in their endeavors to regiment men for their own selfish interests.

It is "a war for the control of men's minds and men's souls," and the battle­fields are human hearts. Truth needs to be presented in a way that thinking people can intelligently decide for God and not for antigod.

This Judgment flour of History

In God's analysis of these times, it is the judgment hour of history. Only this phrase is adequate enough to describe the ordeal through which the human race is now pass­ing. Even modernists see in the ominous events of these times a judgment day. Harry Emerson Fosdick declares, "Today the God of judgment is revealed." And Adolph Keller, in Christian Europe Today, page 156, writes, "The world has become guilty before God, and God sits on the throne of judgment; man is indicted before Him." How important it is then that men should clearly understand the eternal is­sues involved in this judgment age of human history.

This judgment hour is also modern Christendom's hour of confusion. Long ago when the ancient prophet heard the call of God, he answered, "Here am I." Many of his modern counterparts can only ex­claim, "Where am I?" The halfhearted, apologetic voice of a confused church re­mains a problem to itself, and consequently to the world. As Roman Collar expresses it, a voice "so sickly, so unarresting, so ineffective, so inexplosive and, at times, so inept," cannot command attention. "Let us be factual." He asks, "Who listens to it? Who is stabbed broad awake to thought or action by it?" No one! The remedy, contrary to the thinking of some, is not in federation or legislation, but in regenera­tion.

No wonder the late L. P. Jacks of Ox­ford wrote, "I cannot get away from the feeling that I am in the presence of some colossal stupidity." That stupidity is man's egoistic evading of the revelation of God and the regeneration of the human heart.

This hour of judgment and confusion is also an hour of oppression. A demonic dynamism is manifested in the spirit of Satanism, which is abroad in the world. The resurgence of occult, tyrannical re­ligion forebodes a new night of the spirit. We are beholding the Satanocracy of the last days taking shape before our eyes.

Evil men who hold top rank in the devil's hierarchy will seek to establish in the name of God and Christianity one global anti-Christian world as the sum totality of human power. It will be so gigantic in size, so satanic in proportions, that none will challenge its supremacy. That is, none but God and His faithful people. This pseudo theocracy, with its systematic ex­ploitation of the human race, will be the devil's last attempt to rob God of His world and man of his soul.

Even non-Adventist philosophers have expressed the fear that a diabolical pos­session might take hold of all mankind in our time. Men today take up with the devil en masse. They crowd together in herds. They want to be overwhelmed by animalistic hysteria. They want to be car­ried away by demonic pleasure. All such are the ready stooges of those secular or ecclesiastical despotisms that catch mass at­tention while reducing man to a soulless zero. The optimism and idealism of the early days of the twentieth century never dreamed of the malignant influences taking possession of man today. All about us we see under the veneer of civilization the sinister subtlety of satanic slavery. The greatest single horror of history is still to come, camouflaged at first with the decep­tive halo of a pseudo gospel.

As anti-Christianity becomes incarnate, Christianity must become incarnate in the lives of its advocates. Militant demonism cannot be counteracted by conventional Christianity. In this climacteric hour the faithful "remnants" in all faiths are look­ing for God's remnant people. With long­ing desire they await the messengers of the new reformation.

The cumulating chaos of crumbling civilization is driving all sincere thinkers back to the fundamentals in the stark real­ization that outside of Christ there is no hope for survival. Can we not hear the plaintive plea of penitent peoples, tired of reaping the sowings of sin, asking, "Who can show us the true way to the new heav­ens and the new earth—a heaven toward which we may look, not in fear, but with thankfulness and praise?"

The world is sick of its technological miracles without the miracle of the changed heart, of its myths of master races with their insipid but tyrannical dema­gogues who would enslave their fellow men to satiate their own egos. They desire to know something about the divine rule of the Master of love. They, in effect, are saying, "We have enough of this; we want God! Who can put us in touch with Him? Where are the people whose lives remind us of Jesus?"

This Adventist Hour of History

The crucial question, then, confronting the remnant church in this Adventist Hour of History is, I believe: Are we as a people providing the world with that practical demonstration of Christian life and faith that will constrain the faithful of all faiths to seek fellowship in the remnant church?

In other words, can God's faithful in all communions see in us the imputed and imparted righteousness of Christ for which their own souls are so hungry? In actuality, are our own people finding in Christ the solution to their personal problems?

The light and the truth that the world looks for will not be found in the quoting of statistics or in the successful promoting of projects, but only in the revelation of Christ's righteousness. We cannot be con­tent with merely intellectualizing and institutionalizing God's way of life. It must be lived!

We cannot remain a people content with complacency, hiding away in a denomina­tional "dugout," acting like an elder brother to a prodigal world. None are ex­empt from the fellowship of guilt.

We must not make the externals the sum total of religion. The world has already seen too much of that form of religion, which is only a body of ritual from which the "oxygen of life has long since van­ished."

The Adventist Hour of History is to be the modern world's greatest revelation of the righteousness of Christ. This should be our supreme objective. The completion of the gospel message is to be more glorious than its early conquests; the outpouring of the Spirit of God, "more abundant." "The Saviour of men will be glorified, and the earth will be lightened with the bright shining of the beams of His righteousness." —ELLEN G. WHITE, quoted in Arthur G. DanielIs, Christ Our Righteousness, p. 61. This is the heart of the message and ex­perience of the new reformation.

A world tired of irreligion and pseudo religion is groping for the religion of Christ's righteousness. In such an hour we cannot substitute a sanctified calling for a sanctified life, or the acme of Christian education for Christian attitudes. Men and women looking for salvation do not come to us merely because of our scholarship or the length of our service; but, rather, they seek those who have depth of personal sur­render to and fellowship with God. Men believe in a Redeemer when they walk side by side with those whom God has redeemed.

A church of pious platitudes leaves its peoples starving in a spiritual desert. A church that is merely an appendix to the world ultimately dies in deadly rupture. All its blueprints and programs avail noth­ing. But a church of Christ's righteousness —a church of the consecrated fellowship of the redeemed who keep the command­ments of God and the faith of Jesus—will triumph' And, as in John's day, so in our day: "The people are in expectation, and all men muse in their hearts; as they await the messengers of the new reformation."

Essential Personal Qualifications

Let us covet, then, the personal quali­fications of character that will enable us to answer our individual call of destiny. Men and women of the new reformation will, first of all, have a personal knowledge of God. Of such, Daniel wrote these words: "But the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits" (Dan. 11:32). They who have discovered the re­ality of God for themselves may not receive the flatteries of the age, but they will achieve the exploits of the age. Hearsay religion is static; personal communion with God is dynamic.

As Mark Twain was returning from a European tour during which he had en­tertained the celebrities and royalty of the Continent, and in turn had been enter­tained by them, he read to his wife and young daughter from his autograph album a long list of famous signatures. As he finished the imposing number of the earthly great who had left their autographs with him, his eleven-year-old daughter looked up into his face and said, "Daddy, you must know everybody of importance, everybody worth knowing—except God!" Mark Twain observed that those words were the most penetrating sermon he had ever lis­tened to, as his little daughter made him aware of the folly of knowing the great of earth but not really knowing God—whom to know is life eternal. How much the world and the church today need men and women who really know God personally.

Second, the men of the new reformation will be men who are striving for the mastery over self. Jeremiah's question to his scribe, Baruch, is ever pertinent, especially to those who would serve in God's cause: "And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not" (Jer. 45:5). Great things for God—yes; but great things for self—no!

"The glory of love is brightest

Where the glory of self is dim;

And they have the most compelled me,

Who most have pointed to Him."

Self-idolatry is the foundation of all sin, and failure. "But Christ alone is the slogan of the Christocentric theology of revela­tion." And all who live and preach Christ's righteousness will say:

"I do not ask

That men may sound my praises,

Or headlines spread my name abroad:

I only ask that as I voice the message,

Hearts may find God."

—RALPH S. CUSHMAN

The founders of Glasgow were spiritual men who took as their motto "Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the gospel," a glorious motto that the chamber of com­merce made the mistake of shortening to three self-centered words, "Let Glasgow Flourish."

The pioneers of the Seventh-day Advent­ist faith gave us the motto "Let the Seventh-day Adventists flourish by and for the preaching of the everlasting gospel." We must not make the mistake of changing it to read, "Let the Denomination Flourish!" Away with selfishness and false pride! This church does not exist for itself, but for Christ!

A third qualification is personal victory over sin, that our "sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord" (Acts 3:19, 20). The way to this new life is a way of repentance. Personal victory in the war for men's souls qualifies us to lead others to victory, and "only those who have withstood temptation in the strength of the

Mighty One will be permitted to act a part in proclaiming it [this message] when it shall have swelled into the loud cry."—ELLEN G. WHITE in The Review and Her­ald, Nov. 19, 1908.

Underlying all our personal experience and witnessing, a fourth essential is paramount. Jesus says that His new commandment is: "That ye love . . . ; as I have loved you" (John 13:34). Men who love as Christ loved are the men who are needed today. In Christ's matchless life and minis­try "the love of God was flowing from Him in irrepressible streams. All who are im­bued with His Spirit will love as He loved." —The Desire of Ages, p. 678.

In the days of the apostolic church the pagans did not ask, "Have you heard the Christians speak on Christian charity?" No!

They simply said, "See how they love one another!" The early Christians were so successful because they "outloved" all their contemporaries. The world and the church today need a new Pentecost of love.

In all these things destiny is paging you, graduates of this Seminary. The need of the church and of the world is for men—men who know God personally, men who have found the mastery over self, men who have experienced victory over personal sin, men who have a deep, abiding love for God and man. Such are the men and women of the new reformation.

One of God's Mightiest Moments

The Adventist Hour of History is to be one of God's mightiest moments. Christ alone gives eternal meaning to history. Let His righteousness be seen, and His Word be heard, and this world that has been the "wound" of God shall yet become the glory of God.

We cannot escape history. We are on the stage in the theater of the universe, in the greatest drama of the ages—one of those decisive moments when eternity breaks into time and God achieves the incredible! His­tory is paging you! And, by the grace of God, may you meet your rendezvous with destiny.


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J. A. BUCKWALTER, General Conference Field Secretary

September 1955

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