It would be difficult to imagine a more exciting time to be alive, or to imagine a more responsible moment in the history of God's church. How often we have preached this to our churches! Yet, in saying this, we are all aware that men have always thought their day was the most important or the most critical since history began.
Furthermore, history soberly reminds us that the great pivotal hours of God's church on earth have not always been occasions of forward thrust. Israel, before and after the cross to this day, has often allowed the Lord to walk ahead by Himself, in spite of their kings and priests, their organization, directives, and resolutions. Because of these facts our conference president has asked me to speak on this sobering, haunting question that confronts us again in our day: Are the spiritual leaders of the church alive to the implications of our own pivotal moment in history?
For perspective, let us look at one of these pivotal moments in the past, when the church of God hovered between a protracted ineffectiveness and a forward thrust. David was hunted from cave to cave as Public Enemy No. 1. Saul's ineptitude had revived the inglorious public image of Israel that had preceded his reign during the period of the Judges. From the records before us, David was the church's only hope for that generation, and his life hung by a thread. However, men from every tribe slowly began to sense the tragedy they had hitherto supported, and gradually David's cause was strengthened by men who no longer wanted to perpetuate their mistakes. Among those who rallied around David in those critical hours were the men of Issachar, "men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do" (1 Chron. 12:32). They saw Israel's need; they were honest enough to admit their past mistakes; they saw that David was the man of the hour. Consequently, they offered to David their loyalty and intellectual penetration.
If ever God's church needed such men, it needs them today. We need men who understand the times, who know what Israel ought to do. We do not need men who merely recite the times, who make their sermon a Saturday morning Post or a Sabbath morning edition of Newsweek. We hear discordant notes from all sides. We hear half-truths becoming the total message in the hands of this group and that. We see an increasing amount of money diverted to these groups, and the mimeograph machines must be working day and night if my mailbox is any indicator of activity. Yet, in a way, we can learn a lesson from these peripheral voices, and it seems to be simply this: Israel wants to know what they ought to do; Israel senses that they live in a critical hour, and they are looking for men who have an understanding of the times.
After all, there would never be a crisis in any area if past methods and thinking always gave the present a clear key to the future. Critical times become launching pads of great forward thrusts only when men with perception realize that current problems require fresh approaches and keener understanding. I am confident that I am talking to men who crave above all else a keen understanding of the times and a clear picture of what Israel ought to do if Christ is ever going to return in this generation.
Admittedly, there isn't much anyone can do in forty minutes, but we can at least spot some of the actors in the contemporary drama and give a short footnote on how each got into the act. In doing so I have not been asked to merely read newspaper clippings—you can cut and paste as well as I can. Every pastor has his newspaper, his favorite weekly news magazine, The Arsenal from the Pacific Press, the up-to-date editorials in the Review and Herald, the Liberty magazine and The Liberty News mimeo sheet to keep him informed. But his gospel is not according to Newsweek or Walter Lippmann or Drew Pearson, nor do we have a gospel according to the Papal Encyclicals. Our message to the world is not based on a scrapbook of news clippings, but on the thrust of the everlasting gospel. The first may excite, but the other nourishes. The first may incite temporary action, but the other prepares people for eternal fitness. I have no inside line to the Vatican, nor do I have secret news about labor unions or the World Council of Churches, as many visiting speakers seem to have as they come to your pulpits. From this type of gospel thoughtful men recoil.
The first actor on the stage of these last days is well known to us, and he continues to mouth his lines with great faithfulness. The parallel prophecies of Daniel and the companion prophecies of Revelation focus on the rise and fall and re-emergence of the papal power as one of the key actors in the unfolding drama. When we trace the career of papal Rome in our history books and up to this present hour, we are reminded that Daniel and John wrote a very accurate script in advance. In the future, on the basis of their forecast, we can expect the papal power to emerge as the one universal leader—the grand conciliator who draws up a peace plan that even Russia may swallow—yet, at the height of his earthly triumph, "he shall come to his end, and none shall help him" (Dan. 11:45).
When describing the days immediately preceding the papacy's humiliating end, Revelation 13:3 reminds us that they will be exciting days: "One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth followed the beast with wonder" (R.S.V.). The wonder of it all is that Baptists, Presbyterians, Moslems, Communists, Jews, atheists, and all the rest outside the pale of the Roman Catholic Church, except the commandment keepers, will go down to the wire in basic disagreement over Catholic theology. Yet, in the interest of world peace (and who would vote against peace?), these diverse elements will merge their hopes with the pope's astounding peace plan, thus uniting the world under his direction. This is not a theological union when all Christians worship under one roof, but it will be a practical union on a political level for the sake of conformity in an area where it doesn't hurt to agree. Men will do most anything for peace—but we haven't seen anything. yet. The greatest indictment that can be rigged against commandment keepers in the last days will be that they are troublers of the peace. A world tired of tension will buy peace at any price—even though it means a sacrifice of cherished principles.
By now we all have bought our December issue of the Ladies Home Journal so we can preserve that article about Pope John XXIII and his plans for the forthcoming ecumenical council. The article depicts Pope John as a realist who understands the "insuperable obstacles that exist to prevent the union of the Catholic and Protestant churches. However, he is tolerant and cordial toward Protestants, and he has a profound desire to bridge the gulf that exists between the two major branches of the Christian faith so that they can cooperate."
The article concludes: "Probably only this Pope, with his long experience as a peacemaker, could consider it a possibility to persuade Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, Seventh-day Adventists and Mohammedans, Shintoists, Buddhists, Jews, Confucianists and many others to work together. If anyone can accomplish such a miracle, it will be John XXIII the great conciliator."
During the third assembly of the World Council of Churches at New Delhi, Pope John launched another trial balloon for world unity in his sixth encyclical, in which he expressed the hope that "the dawn of universal reconciliation" would soon come under the fatherhood of the Papacy.
He knew that unity is the key word in the Protestant ecumenical movement and he knew that his message would not be lightly treated. Those who kept up with the Delhi conference noted that theological unity was still a long way off, but that was not their chief concern. "The Delhi mood was still to 'obey Christ's command' [to find unity] and to work out 'details of doctrine' later." The Protestant leaders recognized this day as a time of "greater challenge to Christianity than that posed by the Renaissance, as an age more demanding than any since apostolic times," consequently, "they felt oneness more than truth to be their highest calling."—Christianity Today, Dec. 22, 1961, p. 22.
I need only to remind you that this week is the 1962 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity sponsored by the World Council of Churches. Today, Tuesday, we should be praying for the unity of the Baptists, Congregationalists, and Methodists. Last Friday, we were to pray for union with the Roman Catholics.
All this reminds us of words written more than eighty years ago: "The Protestants of the United States will be foremost in stretching their hands across the gulf to grasp the hand of Spiritualism; they will reach over the abyss to clasp hands with the Roman power; and under the influence of this threefold union, this country will follow in the steps of Rome in trampling on the rights of conscience."—The Great Controversy, p. 588 (see Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 451).
All the world will wonder how a religious power that brazenly employs gambling for religious purposes, that flaunts its support of the liquor trade, that unblushingly curtails the personal freedom of minority religious groups—yes, it will always be a wonder how this political, economic-religious power maintains its spiritual prestige and how every year its halo seems to glow even brighter. Yet, what else would you expect from the mystery of iniquity, for the day is coming when black will seem pure white and the devil himself will appear as Christ on earth.
The peace-and-safety cry for something incredibly simple and workable, yet wrapped in the mantle of incontrovertible authority, is already common talk. For instance, a leading Jesuit theologian, Father Boyer, a few weeks ago declared that Christian unity is impossible without an authority that is both infallible and visible. Father Boyer is president of the Unitas Association, an organization founded to ventilate the Catholic Church's attitude on Christian reunion. He is also a member of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity set up in connection with the forthcoming Second Vatican Council. He was commenting on the definition of unity proposed by the Protestant World Council of Churches. Father Boyer said this definition "still remains a faraway ideal. 'Without being either perfect or complete," he said, "there is still too much contained in it to be realized without the aid of an authority. And this authority must be infallible. And it must be visible."
But in our emphasis on Catholic and Protestant overtures to unity we must not overlook their mutual overtures to the Jews. In the Delhi meeting Protestants were urged to reclarify their teaching in regard to the Jewish responsibility for the death of Christ or any other seeds of anti-Semitism. Pope John set an example for all Catholics by ordering the deletion of the phrase "perfidious Jew" from the Good Friday liturgy. Jewish leaders are aware of all this, and according to Rabbi Joachim Prinz, president of the American Jewish Congress, they are "deeply gratified" by it. "This," says Rabbi Prinz, "may mark an historic turning point in the relationship between the Christian world and the Jewish people."
The next major actor in the drama of these last days is Protestant America. In Revelation 13 her role was predicted to be a unique breed among the nations. Adventists have long interpreted these verses as portraying the rise of a political haven where all men would enjoy the freedom so long denied on this planet. Yet, before this freedom was long-lived this young nation would suffer the inevitable explosion of the inherent seeds of class struggle that have deteriorated the fondest hopes of the best of social dreamers in the past on other continents. The American dream of rugged individualism, the sacredness of property, the exhilarating effect of opportunity, the enervating effect of security, and the virtues of hard work and independence —all this would blow up in the face of the facts of life—facts that other nations have experienced for thousands of years.
When the frontier vanished into the Pacific Ocean, Americans could do nothing else than turn to themselves and consolidate. Selfish, insecure men are grasping men, and they fear free discussion and competition like the plague. Long before these political and economic and social leaders stop using the vocabulary of the American dream, they will have stopped using its mechanics and its spirit.
However, freedom and peace will obviously remain the sales pitch for all the restrictions henceforth imposed on the citizens of the United States. Security for all will be sold as the key to national prosperity, and this new breed of leaders will so sell their program that it will become morally legitimate to impose social pressure on the individual for his best good.
Springing from various lines of argument, the predominant philosophy that man is a unit of society will prevail. Consequently, the following logic will appear true: Since man is a unit of society, he is unhappy and meaningless when isolated and independent; only as he collaborates with others does he become worthwhile, for by sublimating himself in the group, he helps produce a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. What is good for society is good for the individual.
To sell this social ethic, man will employ the good offices of the pragmatic philosophers, such as William James and John Dewey, and the benevolent bureaucrats of the organizations that have tied America into economic bundles—organizations such as the labor unions, the corporation web, and the interlocking Protestant church on the social-action level rather than on the ideological level, where they will never completely unite. In other words, America will come to the day when its clearest traditions, so eloquently articulated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, will be transvalued so that when American leaders say freedom they will mean security; when they say the dignity of the individual they will mean his self-fulfillment in a social context.
Of this inevitable development Ellen G. White wrote:
"The same masterful mind that plotted against the faithful in ages past is still seeking to rid the earth of those who fear God and obey His law. Satan will excite indignation against the humble minority who conscientiously refuse to accept popular customs and traditions. Men of position and reputation will join with the lawless and the vile to take counsel against the people of God. Wealth, genius, education, will combine to cover them with contempt. Persecuting rulers, ministers, and church members will conspire against them.... Not having a 'Thus saith the Scriptures' to bring against the advocates of the Bible Sabbath, they will resort to oppressive enactments to supply the lack."—Testimonies, vol. 5, pp. 450, 451.
This is that tragic hour in America's future when quoting the documents of freedom becomes intolerable to men who are sensitive to words restored to their original context.
(To be continued)