Pointer's

"MAKE IT PLAIN"

"My position is so clear," said Lincoln, "that the honest cannot misunderstand, nor the dishonest misrepresent me." "And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it" (Habakkuk 2:2).

Our world is a thirst for understanding. They will hear the man who has it. We are custodians of Heaven's priceless pearl of truth. To all who would communicate God's Word to sinful man comes the counsel to "make it plain." Today's pulpit has been much abused with vague pronouncements, political endorsements, glorified personal opinions, and ran-fled hot air. Some saints are treated to an assort­ment of double talk and "high" theology that does not get low enough, and "deep" theology that knows nothing of the fresh air of the surface. And if the pulpit be cloaked in foglike obscurity, is it any wonder that the saints wander?

"Make it plain" that the reader may run. He must "flee fornication" (1 Cor. 6:18). He must "flee from the wrath to come" (Luke 3:7). He must "flee also youthful lusts" (2 Tim. 2:22). He must "flee from idolatry" (1 Cor. 10:14). He must "flee out of the midst of Babylon" (Jer. 51:6). Except we "make it plain," how shall he that heareth know to flee—when or where? "Short, plainly made points, avoid­ing all rambling, will be of the greatest advantage. . . . He must not ramble all through the Bible but give a clear, connected discourse, showing that he understands the points he would make."—Evangelism, p. 181. "In Christ's teaching there is no long, far-fetched, complicated reasoning. . . . A few forcible remarks upon some point of doctrine will fasten it in the mind much more firmly than if such a mass of matter were presented that nothing lies out clear and distinct."—Ibid., pp. 171, 172.

E. E. C.

WE CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS

When Adventist preachers wish to impress strange and new truths upon people, they often speak of new truth and new light in the words of Pastor Robinson's last sermon before the Pilgrims left Leyden. He, we read in Ed Winslow's Hypocrisie Unmasked, page 97, "took occasion also miserably to bewail the state and condition of the Reformed Churches, who were come to a period in Religion, and would go no further than the instruments of their Refor­mation: As for example, the Lutherans they could not be drawne to goe beyond what Luther saw, for whatever part of God's will he had further im­parted and revealed to Calvin, they will die rather than embrace it. And so also saith he, you see the Calvinists, they stick where he left them: a misery much to bee lamented; for though they were pre­cious lights in their times, yet God hath not re­vealed his whole will to them: and were they now living, saith hee, they would be as ready and will­ing to embrace further light, as that they had re­ceived."

We are wont to declare, with many others, that Methodism has made little or no doctrinal progress, but remains where Wesley left it—which is subject to clarification! Other religious bodies seem to us to have made but little doctrinal and spiritual progress since their pioneers fell asleep.

Now all this is easily said of others. What of our­selves? Here are people declaring that we have de­parted from the teachings of the pioneers. Others are bemoaning our reluctance to accept new light. We cannot have it both ways!

While we are not to forget the way the Lord has led us, there can be no justification for requiring that our detailed beliefs and religious conceptions must always coincide minutely with those of Jo­seph Bates, J. N. Loughborough, Uriah Smith, and the rest of the original pioneers and later leaders. They made some mistakes from which we must profit, and in some cases their doctrine and pro­phetic interpretations were not unalterable.

The foundations stand secure, but reverence for the pioneers must not tie us to slavish acceptance of details that are not conditions of salvation. For example, I am neither saved nor lost by believing or disbelieving exactly what Loughborough be­lieved on the 144,000. New light comes as we move forward unitedly into the opening providences of God. Let us not try to move forward in reverse!

H. W. L.

ADRENALIN ADDICTS

There are people who seem to enjoy hatred more than love, who revel in being critical rather than encouraging, who enjoy their own bad tempers rather than a calm and balanced temperament.

A critical disposition and a bad temper do some­thing to us. They may boost our blood pressure, cramp our creative energies, ruin what otherwise might be a winsome disposition in a sometimes dis­couraging world. A British columnist in the British Weekly pointed out recently that Aldous Huxley once wrote a book in which he called such people "adrenalin addicts."

An "inconsistent, uncontrollable spirit is like an insidious poison taken into the system, and its bitter results will appear sooner or later."—Testimonies, vol. 4, pp. 500, 501. 

H. W. L.